#but also i love how the asoiaf fandom was also collectively just like no he is built like a male model

[buttercuparry]

I wonder if those who outrage against "masculinized" female characters ever stop to consider that the more our society is progressing, we are moving further away from the concept of gender roles. And that what you are into and what you do is actually a personal quirk and not something that classifies you.

I mean the manliest heterosexual cis man to have ever manned can find embroidery soothing. Like his love language can be gifting his friends pretty embroidered things. It is not a question of his capacity to be "feminine"...it is a question of talent and passion.

I think when fandom characterizes Arya as this masculine coded violent girl- they just can't fathom that a young girl can ever have any other interests than those who came before her. But if it is all about aesthetics, how come Arya cooing over babies, her collecting flowers, her scrubbing floors, prepping meals etc are not considered part of it?

Here is the thing though, gushing over babies is not something that's limited to the female. Samwell ( I know I use him as an example a lot) sang lullabies to his baby brother. He loved this particular nightly ritual till his father thought it "soft" and put an end to it. Soothing babies is not being soft, it's providing them with the emotional care they need. And the only reason it seemed freakish to Randyll Tarly is because this care was being provided by his son. And that's bullshit.

I also think the matter of this supposed criticism resides in part with stereotypes of sexuality. I mean the most tradfem of the characters is headcanoned to have one hundred and one children. While a mother who lost her son in womb is deemed to forever remain infertile. Like I know Dany was cursed by Mirri Maz Duur but this is a fantasy series! Anything can happen. And even if one claims this to be a personal view on the text, linking infertility to her supposed madness is not it.

I feel like there was this checklist going on where they have stuff like: do male characters lust after these women, do these characters dress up prettily, are they attracted to men- if so then they are the definition of feminine. When unfortunately Dany passed all of these ( even the one with many gross male characters almost wanting to prey on her)- they went with the infertility- madness thing.

They can't do this with Brienne because I think Grrm has made it impossible to do so with her. She actively tried to participate in the role subscribed to her but was made fun of by those around her. So she took to knighthood. It has been abundantly made clear that she loved Renly and there is this weird push and pull between her and Jaime. And it's weird how much the scale of femininity lies not with the characters, but in the kind of association this character has with a man. And Jaime is one of the most "desireable" man of Asoiaf. Brienne not being in the way of the one who they think is embodiment of the feminine helps too I guess.

I think this is what stumps them about Arya. It doesn't matter how much she says: the woman is important too. How much she whines when people call her a boy. To them it is all about aesthetics. They go: is she wearing pretty dresses? And they answer is: her dresses are muddy because she runs around in it just as a child would do. They go: okay does she like wearing them- the answer is she never complained before. Only perhaps during her whole riverland arc because she thinks it is impractical. And to them these immediately translate into- but! But!! Sansa was said to be a lady at three. She never thought to go against that which was prescribed to her!! Demureness and subservience is what is feminine!! And also dresses, songs, dancing, embroidery are absolutely hated by Arya because these represent traditional femininity and she has internalized misogyny so she would rather fence and horse ride and wear pants as they symbolize her affinity to the masculine.

They are so so obsessed with a particular kind of beauty and if it is all soft and demure. And of course how it appeals to the male gaze ( all those edits about how beautifully sansa suffers) . Arya is targeted because she in the text is set up against someone who can be whitewashed into their idea of the feminine. Which is why there is this repeated conjecture and criticism of fancasts because how can Arya look like that ? She is afterall called horsefaced (doesn't matter if it's done by bullies) and there is nothing feminine about her ( she is too rebellious)!

This again brings in the case of Lyanna. Right now the fandom is fawning over Elia but there was a time when the most common theory was Arya inherited Lyanna's willfulness while Sansa has her aunt's beauty and femininity. Even now in bits and pieces I get to see this take because how can someone fight over one who looks like Arya.

And what does Arya look like? A pre-pubescent child. Because she is one. And with all the trying to stay alive while disguised as a boy: yeah I think personal grooming wasn't the first thing that was on her mind back then. But all these somehow reinforces her masculinity. Her having no option and turning up to the HoBaW and having to play by their rules somehow does the same. And I think last of all this is what forms the crux of it.

Arya's storyline is her own. She hasn't yet been to a place where her themes can get intertwined with a male character. Up until now her story provides a commentary that is purely her own, independent of any man. And I say this because I know how GoT was written, I see what is happening with Rhaenyra and Alicent in HoTD. I feel like in asoiaf fandom the trend is that themes discussed about women characters often end up being more about their male ship partners. Or they are completely removed from any significant action- and moved as passive pieces across the storyboard in a way that would best glorify or vilify a man.

So here is a female character who is on a journey that is solely her own. It cannot be twisted into anything relating to any man. And I think this at a subconscious level feels peculiar to them. Which is why show!Arya got butchered because to D&d Arya's rebellion got translated into " I want to be one of the boys".

And I think this is why there is also this urge to headcanon her as someone who won't be interested in romance. They don't see her admiring Gendry when he is working, the sensuality of her interaction with Jaqen in the bath house ( i know it's creepy. Grrm at times makes me want to side eye him), that Jon literally compares Ygritte to Arya. Romance to them looks unnatural on anyone who is not playing by "norms".

#arya stark

[leesielex]

Awww look. I got more Dany hate for a post that said Dany was Mother of Dragons. And so many of these trolls then theorize or fanfic that THEIR fave hatches their own dragons. Why would GRRM have TWO characters hatch dragons giving the same plot to both? Cersei is already becoming the mad queen with an attraction to wildfire, please tell me how it would make sense to have two mad queen stories in the same series too? Like How unoriginal and boring are you? Obviously you are at least as unimaginative as D&D, ya know the dude bros that claimed to read the books but didn't know Sam was a POV chap and thought a show where the confederacy won and kept slavery was a fantastic idea.

It also shows you completely miss the whole point of the series, that they all bring something to the table, that it's about the collective and greater good, that no one is perfect and it's about the struggle, the journey, the mistakes and learning from them. That they must put aside petty squabbles and the war for the iron throne to defeat the Others and save the realm.

Please tell me how they defeat the Others WITHOUT dragons? They don't. They all die. If you don't like fantasy with dragons then what are you doing here? If you so badly hate a woman with power &are a misogynist, just say that.

Seriously, show me a single character that has better judgement than Dany? That hasn't made a bunch of bad judgements, terrible decisions, been impulsive or let their emotions get the better of them, more than once, in the ASOIAF series? There isn't a single character in the whole story, especially those in positions of power like Stannis, Jon, but even Sansa and Bran that there isn't a list of poor judgements they have made that often result in the deaths of themselves, their loved one, or their people. (Except Bran but he is literally 7-9 in the books and has already committed 2 of the 3 abominations that skinchangers should never do). Like no one gets as much hate as Dany, no one is held to as high as standards as Dany and yet Dany is one of GRRMs fave characters, one of the key five, and the whole world of Planetos would be fucked w/o her and her dragons.

According to GRRM, Dany is a hero. “My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones."

And from Fevre Dream, written by GRRM I never held much with slavery […]. You can’t just go… usin’ another kind of people, like they wasn’t people at all. Know what I mean? Got to end, sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but it’s got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see? Maybe that’s what them abolitionists been sayin’ all along. You try to be reasonable, that’s only right, but if it don’t work, you got to be ready. Some things is just wrong. They got to be ended."

And when asked if the dragons are like nukes-

"it’s often been said that the dragons are the nuclear weapons of my imaginary world. They are the most devastating weapon, and they cause great destruction, massive loss of life. but they’re not necessarily, you know, I mean, this is part of Dany’s storyline and the original novels."

Dany sacks Astapor and takes Meereen and yet she DOESNT USE HER DRAGONS IN THE BOOKS BUT ONE TIME TO KILL BURN ONE PERSON IN THE ENTIRE SERIES SO FAR!

Y'all either never read the books and are going only off D&D's fanfiction show, you haven't read the books in so long that you remember the show scenes better than the books and conflate the two, or you let the Internet forum hate of Dany dictate your thoughts without zero confirmation or critical thinking of your own.

So gtfoh with that "nuke" bs. Even GRRM backtracked on that recently. Prob cause he saw how badly D&D and so many of the fandom has misinterpreted this story due to misogyny and media illiteracy.

#anti antis #daenerys targaryen #daenerys targaryen deserved better #daenerys defense squad #Dany is my queen #the dragons will end the long night

[consistentsquash]

Asoiaf Detailed Rec - Rubicon: A Dreamer's Sextet

Asoiaf Sunday! Easter Sunday so best time to rec a fic about the Failed!Jesus archetype Rhaegar Targaryen. I am actually late by one day but anyway.

TL;DR - He's a total loser. But also the guy who never learned to hate.

My fav author summary ever - She is horny. He is not. They live.

Why Rec - Because using sex for character development and story exposition is valid! Because good ace representation doesn't have to always mean sex repulsed. Because sometimes humans do be complicated and messy. Because established relationship means you have got to keep establishing it. Because het doesn't mean it can't be super queer. Rhaegar is Ace coded with really low/zero sex drive but he's got the kinkiest married sex life and that becomes the biggest building block in their relationship. This is actually my favorite Ace characterization I have personally read.

YMMV - I feel like when a fic deviates from a lot of standard conventions it can be a tough sell. Which is totally understandable. I am reccing it because I loved it. But of course YMMV. These things are subjective. There is a lot of sex for exposition which can also be YMMV.

Big things - This fic won't make sense if you don't have some basic info about their canon.

Ok! Time for details! Sorry if my rec is really bad but I don't go for het fics normally. Also no agegaps. Also they are married. Also they have kids. Stuff I totally nope out of. Idk I mean trust me. It's an eldritcher fic. So it's just really weird/sensitive/brilliant. Nothing is normal.

Will probably clean this up for writing a meta on AO3 later :D If i get the motivation.

Link - Rubicon: A Dreamer's Sextet

Author - eldritcher

Pairing - Rhaegar/Elia. There is also some vibes of Rhaegar/Oberyn but it's complicated.

Type - het, canon divergence, Not canon compliant in the sense Rhaegar, Elia and their children survive

Length - 150000 words. Complete. It's a collection of fics. So depending on whether you read the full thing or just some one shots the length is going to be different. I used the series length here. We get POV one shots from Rhaegar, Elia, Aerys, Rhaella, Arthur Dayne, Rhaenys, Lyanna, Oberyn, Doran. Highly recommend reading the full thing because it's brilliant.

Themes - Asexuality

One of the best parts about this fic. It really said here is this handsome hero archetype everybody crushes on. Also he is Ace. Deal with it. Total sensualist. But you can have sensuality w/o wanting sex. You can also be sex positive. You can also be bi and ace. Like you can be anything and how you feel about things can change from time to time. Mess is ok. Of course it doesn't say it like it. The fic doesn't feel like checklists on good rep. It's just when you read it you get it. YMMV. Idk if that's better than flat out saying things. But this really worked for me. Also the reason why I am writing a het fic rec. Omg.

Themes - Masculinity

Rhaegar's characterization is a meditiation on masculinity. Idk how to explain. But it breaks him down in this flesh and blood style. Really sensitive. Normally in fanfic/romance genre I am more used to seeing sensitive takes on female characters instead of male characters. Especially cishet hero type male characters in a het fic where they can be for wish fulfilment type roles. Slash fic is of course different but also similar. One of the M/M characters generally will get more sensitivity/focus compared to the other character. This is pretty different. The vulnerability/nuance in Rhaegar's characterization is insane.

Themes - Queer

Asoiaf fandom like hp fandom can get pretty weird about what a het fic should be like. Probably not the right place to talk about it. But I feel fanfics can be subversive in a lot of ways. I really love how this fic subverts some fandom concept of a het fic. Rhaegar and Elia are really queer in the sense they are super different. They are not neurotypical, they both have hyperfixations, dysphoria but at like some emotional level. Anyway it's the type of mess idk how to describe because they are super messy humans.

Odd and odd, matched in equal wedlock, and it has become something like felicity.

It really says you can be weird and also the world's biggest loser but you can be happy in a relationship.

Themes - Failure

The biggest win of this fic is the Rhaegar POV. He is a pretty controversial/polarizing character whose motives are unknown/ambiguous in canon. Fandom can get into whitewashing/bashing territory for that type of character.

This fic straight out builds his character as a failure and also makes us sympathize with him. I mean you end up rooting for him because that's how great the character development is.

He carries the rivers he failed to cross.

Themes - Love

A really unconventional love story. But it's definitely love. It's the type of love that just becomes mythological but like without epic soundtracks or montages.

There is a promise in the reek of burned clothes and hair and the man bathed in her water. Something of the father handed to the spouse. It is only a promise. Words are not deeds. It is only a promise, that he will cross this last river to her.

What I really love is how they really fail a lot. Like they make promises and don't succeed like they want. But it's ok. Because trying your best counts! Points for effort! :D

Themes - Hope

I mean! This is an eldritcher fic. Hope is everywhere! The vibe is pretty Tolkien about that. Sometimes you got to believe in stories and that's what you need to get to the other side of some tunnel.

"Nymeria fled the cruel dragon-lords after Garin fell. She took her people with her, on any sea-worthy vessel they could get their hands on. They sailed, for months and months, until months became years. Many perished, many deserted, many rebelled. One night, Nymeria stood at the steer of her vessel, and looked up at the bare sky in despair. Perhaps she prayed to a god. Perhaps she prayed to none. A star rose for her. Bright it was, and enduring. She led her fleet where the star went, south and south and south, until they washed ashore on Dorne. There, waiting for her, beneath the star, was Mors Martell. Gladly, she married him and twined their houses, binding her sun to his spear. He gave her a myrtle crown and taught her about the fruitage of oranges. Thus she became the Dornishman's wife." An old tale Doran liked to tell Oberyn and her when they were children. Her odd husband listens to her raptly. There is a strangeness in him that is not merely dragon-blood or dreams. She thumbs his brows to undo the frown that has settled there. Children believe in stories. And it is belief that gives stories life. "Only a story," she tells him.

Themes - Feminism

Really, really feminist. I mean. Idk how to explain. It is a Rhaegar centric fic. But a male protagonist doesn't have to mean you can't have a fic which is feminist. Rubicon is pretty uncompromising on that. No boss ladies or femme fatale or archetypes like that. But this story in canon is a really slippery one for the Bechdel test. Which means the fic fandom just can get into character/ship bashing and writing female characters like archetypes/pit them against each other. I really love how the fic explores the female character trauma in the canon with a lot of sensitivity.

Characterizations

Book characterizations. No show elements from GOT. But the characterizations are deeper/more nuanced because these are not POV characters in the books. They are dead by the time the books start. Really beautiful interwoven characterizations where you can see Isabel Allende style The House of Spirits influence in their generational trauma. This fic got me from somebody who just didn't like Rhaegar's character to actually seeing him in a more interesting light. Deep and beautiful characterization and character dynamics of the Robert's Era Rebellion Targaryens. The Aerys and Rhaella POVs are insanely good and dark. The Rhaegar characterization is superb. Elia is also brilliantly characterized. The whole series is unforgettable, intense, unsettling, uncomfortable and absolutely a must read.

Plot

It doesn't really have a lot of plot. It's just Rhaegar and Elia from 16 to 40. How their characters change/grow. The plot parts are just the canon divergence because they survive the war and get a bittersweet ending.

Prose

The prose style is kind of less poetic compared to Ossuarium. Which works great because Ossuarium had dragons. By the time this fic happens in the canon timeline the dragons are dead. So their world is less supernatural/magical. The lowkey prose kind of reflects that.

Some other thoughts

Rubicon is Ossuarium honestly. Just a continuation in the canon timeline. It has the same queerness and feminism vibes IMO. YMMV.

Length - 150000 words. Complete. It's a collection of fics. So depending on whether you read the full thing or just some one shots the length is going to be different. I used the series length here. We get POV one shots from Rhaegar, Elia, Aerys, Rhaella, Arthur Dayne, Rhaenys, Lyanna, Oberyn, Doran. Highly recommend reading the full series because it's insanely brilliant.

#acespec #ace rhaegar #rhaegar targaryen #elia martell #gotfic #asoiaf fic rec #fic recs #het fic recs #recs #detailed fic recs #asoiaf #rarepair fic recs #long fic recs #the vibes on this #idk what happened maybe eclipse season but i am writing het fic recs #but this is the queerest het fic i read #so #idk anyway rhaegar the failed jesus

[horizon-verizon]

re: Laena and Daemon’s treatment of her. 

I think the fandom tends to shift the blame for Laena, Baela and Rhaena being neglected onto Daemon instead of the writers/showrunners. 

In their quest to make him as irredeemable as possible, the writers severed him from his positive relationships with non-Rhaenyra people. This negatively impacted his relationship with his Black wife and Black daughters.

The writers are quite possibly racist and anti-Black. We see it in the treatment of Mysaria, Laena, Baela and Rhaena.

However, the blame does not rest solely on them, the fandom is also racist, and they enjoy their fantasies about Laena and how she’s a Black seductress/Jezebel, who could not steal him away from his great white love.

They constantly champion the Driftmark scene where Daemon ignores his bruised, bleeding daughters and only moves when he sees Rhaenyra might be in danger, as a sign that Rhaenyra is the only woman he will ever love. 

Response to this post.

I agree. I'll say something else about a thing I said: about HotD making the Velaryons/their scions Black and even though I do think canon!Daemon had a more passionate regard for canon!Rhaenyra is more than the canon! Laena, it is very true that many white or non-Black ASoIaF fans tend to disregard the dragon twins from just their names and shift it onto Jaehaerys and Jaehaera OR full out calling them "monkeys" and delighting in fantasies of their mistreatment or abuse. Ironic because it still has a different flavor to the fantasies of Rhaenyra's sons dying horrible painful deaths.

Then you may have art leaving them out of what was called "family" portrait as if the twins are not blood-related to Rhaenyra as her first cousins and to-be wives of her sons, and would-be mothers to her grandkids. Stepchildren who she raised alongside Daemon and helped develop into the young girls and women they eventually become, thus are her kids.

And to leave it at how the canon relationship may "support" the idea that LaenaxDaemon was an inferior relationship to Daemyra can effectively encourage racism against show!Laena. Because we already 1) face people mixing canon and show lore, cherry-picking facts, etc., 2) some events and how they went down aren't messed up too much in the show, HotD, and the original stories still yield a collective significance, and meaning to viewers of both book readers and show-only watchers. We're never going to get out of this rut until every person is as dedicated to reading the stories as much as a book reader, pondering for hours about characterizations and implications of some monarchial declarations and actions in the world.

*EDIT (forgot to add this)* Yeah show!Laena is black/PoC unlike canon, but I think that it is not her becoming black and then continuing with the Velaryon-suffering already in the original story (thus making as if there was racism when it is supposedly just the writers overlooking the optics once race is changed). We shouldn't pretend that the show!Velaryons have the exact same treatment or events happen to them in the same ways as in canon.

The writers did make some changes regarding how the Velaryones acted and the events surrounding them:

Laena gets that self-immolating treatment (a common wife-riddance social tool in some cultures' literature and actual history) when dragon riders actually don't die often in fire nor is that even a desired death by anyone in canon. It's simply a flashier way to go and to provoke watchers while giving more pain to an already dying, lonely woman (as she wasn't surrounded by loved ones like in canon, and in Driftmark her childhood and ancestral home).

Laenor got punched up by a Kingsuard while becoming the next Prince Consort of a ruling Queen, and yet doesn't recompense through Criston's exile or death.

Laenor loses his lover to a nonsensically-allowed outburst of rage from Colon in the midst of his engagement feast. In canon, Choler kills Joffrey in what could be reasonably excused, at least, during a melee, where anyone could get killed in a competitive fury. Thus Cholera escaped death and punishment that way.

And then some scenes they should have included. One is Laena bonding with Vhagar in her preteens, which would have provided its own significance being contrasted against Aemond's bonding moment with Vhagar. We get a clue that she used sailing rope to climb onto the dragon's back, but we do not see scenes of her getting to this point using her wits. We do not know how she avoided her caretakers to visit Vhagar or maybe how Rhaenys guided her into approaching Vhagar and teaching her commands or such. (We do not know how she processed possibly being married to a 30+ man, how the Velaryons broached that with her, either, and with Aemma's unnecessarily violent birth scene that centers Viserys' emotions more, this part especially reveals the writers' lack of concern for female character's development as they should writing a woman's story.) Laena's bonding with Vhagar contextualizes and makes real the visible mourning the show makes Vhagar have AND works to show why & how she came to be so loved by Rhaenyra and Daemon on her own merit.

Removing Laena from their lives or subduing that bond really just reduces the emotionality of all three characters, the bonds they had with each other, remove the reason why Rhaenyra announced that her sons would marry Laena's daughters and makes it seem more about politics than a blend of that and genuine love (thus a loss in complexity that is pretty inherent to these characters' family lives)

Which is very much a change. A downgrade and misunderstanding of the canon. The Dance was a war incited by many moments where the respective sides grew more and more suspicious of each other from domestic issues and misogyny-- "small" events of pointed insults or court-group censure, hidden meetings for plots, etc. and then there would be what we had with Laena, Rhaenyra, and Daemon where the life they had for a short while nonetheless created a stronger base not just for rhaenyra but all her kids. why wouldn't we want to see how the blacks/rhaenyra and Daemon's "blended" family operate and how each kid developed over the years to anticipate how they would act during the war itself? (Esp for the non-book readers coming into this story for the first time). *END OF EDIT*

#asoiaf asks to me #asoiaf race #fandom racism #hotd characterization #hotd racism #fandom critical #hotd critical

[finitefall]

I'm a person who hasn't watched the show and is reading the books but why everyone is saying jon is Rhaegar's son? Like in the books it's not hinted that much right? And I feel this parentage of jon is not so important in books as compared to other things that are going on in books... But it might be just me lol, I can't see jon as a Targaryen, he's more a Stark than anyone (ofc arya too)

That's amazing, don't watch it! ;)

There are definitely things in the show that are not canon in the books, so be careful when you read so-called canon things (especially when people use the asoiaf tag instead of the got tag). However, Jon being the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna is considered true by most books readers because of the clues. It's still speculation at this point, you're right, the hints given through the books are collected by readers who thought about it logically: if Ned isn't Jon's biological father, then who is it? And since Jon does look like a Stark and have the traits of a Stark, then who could be his mother? I'll be very honest, I don't have the courage to go through the books and write a meta (sorry nonnie!), but others have done it. You can search R+L=J, you'll find more useful answers than mine.

You don't have to see him as a Targaryen, just because his biological father is Rhaegar doesn't mean he even has the last name like in the show, and it doesn't have to mean anything about who he is as a person, his personality and character traits. There are plenty of people who didn't take after one of their biological parents, thank God for many of us!

It's important for Jon of course, and he's one of the five key players, heavily implied in the magical storyline. D&D threw the fantasy aspect show out of the window in favor of more political drama when it came to the R+L=J revelation, but Jon dealing with his identity combined with his role in the fight against the Others (some say he's Azor Ahai and Dany is Nissa Nissa, for me Dany is Azor Ahai, but in any case, he does have a major role as one of the key players) will be important for the story.

There are a lot of important things going on in the books, you're right. People are talking a lot about this because we think it's an important part too, because we love theories and speculations (especially since that's all we can do while hoping to read The Winds of Winter one day), because the show screwed up so many things that we want to talk even more about how the books will handle things and because there's too many Jonerys foreshadowing to say it won't happen (and since Dany is a popular character in the ASOIAF fandom, everything relating to Jon will also be talked about by Dany stans).

#ASOIAF #Jon Snow #answered

[twelvemonkeyswere]

Ao3 Tag Game

Tagged by @nire-the-mithridatist - thank youuuuu!! :3

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

Just 9! One is a short collection of one-shots so you could technically count it as “11”

2. What’s your current AO3 wordcount?

37,715 words

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Oh I’ve written for several fandoms, but finished almost none and published even less. I have written down stuff for Doctor Who, The Mentalist, Fringe, several Sherlock Holmes fandoms (canon, Elementary, BBC Sherlock), even the Little Mermaid, the Mandalorian, and a Mexican soap opera called La Rosa de Guadalupe. And of course in AO3 I have the JB stuff from the ASOIAF/GOT fandom.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

All of them are JB!

"because of you (I took my time to come around)" - 177 kudos, my exchange fic from last year! My recipient tells me she loved it so I’m very happy about that.

"an honest muttonhead" - 119 kudos, a one shot I wrote for fictober two years ago. I wanted to read a modern AU fic with a Cleos POV, so I wrote one.

"candles burning" - 112 kudos, festive exchange fic from last year too! It’s still in progress, I have not stopped writing this, real life just got in the way.

"it’s not snails (he swears)" - 110 kudos. it’s cute this one has this many kudos! it’s the first fic I posted in AO3 with the intention of sharing. it’s also part of the fictober thing two years ago.

"in a sky full of song" - 75 kudos. a short thing I wrote because I like how Jaime is constantly looking up (at the sky, at Brienne, etc), so I wrote something with that theme in mind.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not.

I try to! I still have to answer some, mostly ones I promised myself I wouldn’t answer until I had published the next chapter of the wip they were on.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I don’t think I have angsty endings, tbh. I suppose the most angsty ending is in “fates,” a Brienne POV story where she is a baby of four and she visits a “magic well” in Morne with her big brother. The myth is that the well tells people their fate, and they don’t believe in that, but it shows Brienne scenes of her future, and it ends with Galladon admitting he saw nothing.

7. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve ever written?

I have definitely written crossovers, even if just in my mind lol. I’m currently writing a proper crossover which is probably the most indulgent thing I have written in a long time, and one that is more of a fusion AU, if that counts. But I don’t know if either will see the light of day.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No, which I’m grateful for.

9. Do you write smut?

Not really, it involves a whole set of skills I’ve never really developed.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware.

11. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not on paper, but I have brainstormed fic ideas with friends and we have sort of outlined possible stories in this way. Excellent method to get an idea out of my system lol

12. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Ooof, I don’t know if I have one, tbh. I’d have to think about it. There’s not a ship that I always go “that’s MY ship” yanno. I tend to be more of “that’s MY shit” and point at full stories or even tropes, sometimes.

13. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

That’s gotta be stuff I never published for Doctor Who, probably. The Mentalist might be up there too. It was around the time I had more access to the internet and I discovered fanfic was a thing.

14. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh this is a tough one. I think most of the stuff I really like that I’ve written is part of stuff I haven’t published. From the stuff I’ve published, I’m going to go with a Sherlock Holmes/Watson fic I wrote in Spanish.

My sister, who had recently come out, challenged me to write something romantic with a same-gender couple from any fandom of my choosing, because they know I’m bad at writing romance.

So I wrote “The Adventure of the Casted Leg,” where a canon Holmes and Watson are now older and finally living together as a settled couple in their Baker Street flat. Holmes breaks his leg, and is forced to rest, which bores him to death. It’s a slice of life of their time together while Holmes recovers, and it ends with the reveal that Watson had been plotting small mysteries for Holmes to solve around the house. It was pure fluff, there was a lot of Holmes thinking Watson was The Best, and my sister loved it back then, which was all I wanted. I put it up in AO3 for preservation ages ago, so it’s the one I’ve published I’m proudest of.

I'mma tag @it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined, @samirant, @im-auntie-social @tall-wolf-of-tarth if you guys want to do it and haven't yet! but if anyone wants to do it GO AHEAD and tag me!!

#personal #tagged meme #nire-the-mithridatist #it's a long post so i'm putting it under a read more

[bighound-littlebird]

do you think sansa will ever become herself again? or do you think shes gonna be so sunk into “alayne” she will misremember who she is permanently like she does with the unkiss

These are two very common ideas passed around in certain corners of fandom that simply have no evidence in canon:  

that Sansa is so immersed in Alayne that she no longer thinks independently of her alter ego, and

that her misremembering the Unkiss is a result of trauma.

But in reality, there's ample evidence that Sansa is actively detaching herself from Alayne rather than disappearing into her alter ego.

In the Alayne I chapter in The Winds of Winter, GRRM provides twelve instances of Sansa adjusting her thoughts, responses and actions in order to be consistent with a bastard born girl. She relies on her memories of her life as Sansa to identify and navigate the intrigues going on before the tourney at the Eyrie. She takes offense that "some upjumped squire" Harry would dare speak down to her.

And Sansa/Alayne doesn't merely separate the two in her thoughts: when she is alone with Petyr, she repeatedly reminds him that she's actually highborn and not his bastard daughter.

Alayne I

No man can wed me so long as my dwarf husband still lives somewhere in this world. Queen Cersei had collected the head of a dozen dwarfs, Petyr claimed, but none were Tyrion’s.

Once your lady mother intended that very thing, but I was trueborn then, and noble.

Outside the window she could hear the laughter of the washerwomen at the well, the din of steel on steel from the ward where the knights were at their drills. Good sounds.

Alayne loved it here. She felt alive again, for the first since her father… since Lord Eddard Stark had died.

" I am from Gulltown.”  And I am not, though Alayne was born there.

For just a little while, as she ran, she forget who she was, and where, and found herself remembering bright cold days at Winterfell, when she would race through Winterfell with her friend Jeyne Poole, with Arya running after them trying to keep up.

Joffrey was comely too, though, she reminded herself.  A comely monster, that’s what he was.  Little Lord Tyrion was kinder, twisted though he was.

Robb would be his age, if he were still alive, she could not help but think, but Robb died a king, and this is just a boy.

 A lady’s armor is her courtesy. Alayne could feel the blood rushing to her face.

"...he believes that you’re beneath him.” “Well, I’m not.  He may think he’s some great knight, but Ser Lothor says he’s just some upjumped squire.”

“Yes,” she said, “but he thinks that I’m a bastard.”

...lemon cake in the shape of the Giant’s Lance, twelve feet tall and adorned with an Eyrie made of sugar. For me, Alayne thought, as they wheeled it out.

The theory that the Unkiss is rooted in Sansa's trauma from Sandor Clegane's mistreatment is also not supported by canon. When a person suffers from PTSD - which is what the sansan hating sofa psychiatrists have diagnosed - they physically and mentally relive the trauma, they don't just have memory of it happening and coming out of it, they are left sick and exhausted both mentally and physically. They relive how they felt during the traumatic event to the exclusion of everything taking place around them. That's specifically what distinguishes PTSD from other disorders. And GRRM provides examples of Sansa experiencing it after the Bread Riots.

But is that what Sansa does when she thinks of Sandor Clegane? No, just the opposite. She wishes he was still with her.

I wish the Hound were here. The night of the battle, Sandor Clegane had come to her chambers to take her from the city, but Sansa had refused. Sometimes she lay awake at night, wondering if she’d been wise. She had his stained white cloak hidden in a cedar chest beneath her summer silks. She could not say why she'd kept it. The Hound had turned craven, she heard it said; at the height of the battle, he got so drunk the Imp had to take his men. But Sansa understood. She knew the secret of his burned face. It was only the fire he feared. That night, the wildfire had set the river itself ablaze, and filled the very air with green flame. Even in the castle, Sansa had been afraid. Outside ... she could scarcely imagine it.

Sansa wondered what Megga would think about kissing the Hound, as she had. He’d come to her the night of the battle stinking of wine and blood. He kissed me and threatened to kill me, and made me sing him a song.–A Storm of Swords, Sansa II

As the boy's lips touched her own she found herself thinking of another kiss. She could still remember how it felt, when his cruel mouth pressed down on her own. He had come to Sansa in the darkness as green fire filled the sky. He took a song and a kiss, and left me nothing but a bloody cloak. A Feast for Crows, Alayne II

She thought of Tyrion, and of the Hound and how he’d kissed her, and gave a nod. A Feast for Crows, Alayne II

Sansa routinely connects Sandor Clegane to her other kissing experiences; twice as Alayne. She experiences no ill effects from remembering him either, nor what happened the night of the Blackwater battle; instead she saves his cloak and willingly uses it to comfort herself.

GRRM has commented on the likelihood of Sansa reuniting with Sandor after his time on the Quiet Isle.

Question: Will Sandor and Sansa meet?

GRRM: Why? The Hound is dead, and Sansa may be dead as well. There's only Alayne. - So Spake Martin

But is Sandor Clegane still the Hound? No, his helm was stolen and used by Rorge, and he's currently in the asoiaf version of rehab. Both the Elder Brother and Thoros of Myr differentiates between the two when speaking to Brienne.

It is true, then," she said dully. "Sandor Clegane is dead." "He is at rest." The Elder Brother paused. - A Feast for Crows, Brienne VII

"There is nothing good about that helm, nor the men who wore it," said the red priest. "Sandor Clegane was a man in torment, and Rorge a beast in human skin." A Feast for Crows, Brienne VIII

As readers, we know that the Hound is dead, Sandor Clegane is the Gravedigger. We also know Sansa remains within Alayne, waiting for the right time to reveal herself. So GRRM comparing the outcomes of both characters is telling. He's also indicated that Sansa's memories of the Unkiss has a larger significance in Asoiaf.

You will see, in A STORM OF SWORDS and later volumes, that Sansa remembers the Hound kissing her the night he came to her bedroom... but if you look at the scene, he never does. That will eventually mean something, but just now it's a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on. - So Spake Martin

If GRRM meant for Sansa's remembering of the Unkiss to only be a symptom of trauma/PTSD, I doubt he would have expanded on it as he does in the above statement. In canon, Sansa's prayers and thoughts have repeatedly had a positively uncanny tendency to come true, which is also something to keep an eye on.

To sum up, we can be confident that Sansa will stay Sansa in her heart, she won't become absorbed by Alayne, and GRRM will eventually reveal the true significance behind the Unkiss.

#sansan #sansa x sandor #sansa stark #sandor clegane #asoiaf meta #meta #snvffstarlet

[abbystanaccount]

GoT/TLOU Abby-sentric fic outline

A synopsis for a fic idea I had that’s too long for me to write all out, so instead here’s the long outline.

I had this idea come to me while drawing my knight Abby drawing, it was inspired by Brienne of Tarth and also I’ve been in the ASOIAF fandom for years. If I were a better writer with more time here’s how my Abby-sentric somewhat GoT AU would go. This fic won’t be super dark, like I could have gone way more sad and have it align with the GoT/TLOU universe more but this is a self indulgent fic lol. Here’s some Ellie / Dina medieval art that could fit in with this too

In this AU the world is basically a GoT/generic fantasy/generic medieval/but less strict 

- There are various lords across the country, some great lords some lesser ones

- Jerry is a great lord, as is Isaac, Maria is a great lady, Neil Druckmann is king (lol)

- There is a plague going around like the Cordyceps but it’s not as bad as the zombie stuff, more like an illness

- Joel is Tommy’s disgraced older brother who was cut off from the family line after going too far for revenge when Sarah was killed

- Ellie is a peasant girl who is immune to the plague, Dina is the younger daughter of a Lord. Jesse is a knight.

- Joel ends up fostering Ellie and takes her with him on his travels, they find out about her immunity to the plague

- Marlene is like a spymaster for Jerry and finds out about Ellie’s immunity, Jerry believes he and his healers can make a cure from her so he has Marlene get Ellie for him, Joel is tricked into bringing her there.

- Joel finds out they plan to run experiments and tests on Ellie to find a cure, and he isn’t about to let them hurt her

- Going back to more about Jerry and Abby, Abby is his only daughter and as a teen becomes betrothed to Owen, who was a knight that got promoted to a lord. Jerry was worried she didn’t want to be a lady and that she wouldn’t end up liking any of her suitors, but when she started to show affection to Owen, Jerry promoted Owen and betrothed them.

- Abby likes to fight though too, and Jerry was fine with her learning to be a warrior as well though it was hard to balance both duties

- Anyway, Joel finds out where they’re keeping Ellie and kills many of Jerry’s men with fire and sword, and also kills Jerry and Marlene when they try to stop him. He burns down part of the castle, rescues Ellie and they go on the run. They eventually settle in the town where Dina and Jesse are.

- Abby is heartbroken over the loss of her father, and also filled with anger. Her father’s most trusted ally Isaac comes in and offers to take charge of the area, Abby agrees to it because most of the council and was killed in the fire and she doesn’t want to lead the town anyway.

- Isaac offers to have Abby trained full time by his best swordsmans so she can be a strong fighter, but he wants her to just be a knight and not a lady anymore. He wants her to break her betrothal to Owen and then have Owen marry one of Isaac’s ally’s daughters, Mel, instead.

- The couple is kinda distraught and conflicted about this, they love each other and have been together for two years. But, Abby knows she wants to go after Joel and can’t just sit back and be a lady. Owen is devastated but has to accept her decision. (They still do the dirty though lol.)

- Owen agrees to the break up and the betrothal to Mel, tough he doesn’t see Mel for a year, and then it’s another year until they’re finally married. 

- In this 2 year period Abby is training, Joel and Ellie are laying low, and she’s also learning to fight and getting to know Lady Dina secretly

- More months pass and then the new spymaster gets word of where Joel and Ellie are hanging out. Abby is informed and she gathers her closest group of friends- Manny, Jordan, Nick, Nora, to come with her. 

-  Abby has still come into contact with Owen throughout the years, they live in nearby towns. They’re friendly and don’t cross the line, it’s obvious Owen still loves Abby, and she loves him, but they chose theirs paths. Abby gets Owen to come with her on the mission and Mel is aware of it and agrees, Mel spent time with Jerry when she was a teen and looked up to him.

- They travel to the town where Joel and Ellie are in disguise. In a lucky ambush they capture Joel. It plays out a lot like the game, and Abby beats Joel with a mace. Owen is a bit disturbed by her brutality. Ellie comes in too late and is subdued, Abby finishes the job with Joel. They let Ellie go like in the game.

- They all basically go back to normal life, but before they part and say goodbye Owen lets Abby know that Mel is pregnant with their child, and Abby is upset with this. Owen is also emotionally unrested from the pregnancy and from how violent he saw Abby be and is so conflicted that when he comes back, he socially retreats from everyone. Abby tries to just continue being a knight a doing jobs for Isaac but she isn’t sure of her purpose anymore and feels lost

- Ellie is devastated from losing Joel, and vows revenge. Tommy is also upset by the news that his brother was killed, but people don’t want him to send out soldiers to find the person responsible, so he meets and supports Ellie in her tracking them down. It doesn’t take long for his spies to figure the perpetrators were likely connected to Jerry and his house, so Ellie gets Jesse to come with her on a mission to find out what happened. Dina wants to come too but can’t as her parents won’t allow it, though, she sends her blessing.

- Abby goes on a job for Isaac where she’s supposed to kill Seraphites but runs into Lev and Yara and befriends them. She starts to find her purpose again through helping the displaced kids. Yara injures her arm due to the Seraphites hunting them, so Abby decides to head to Owen’s nearby town where there are healers, but they need a discreet one as Seraphites are seen as hostiles.

- Ellie and Jesse infiltrate Owen’s town in search of answers, meanwhile Abby sneaks in Lev and Yara to Owen’s castle and he’s surprised to see her. She tells him she needs a discreet healer and he tells her of one on the outskirts of town. He’s worried about Abby but she brushes him off. She thanks him and goes there with Lev and Yara.

- Ellie and Jesse ask around about Abby and some townspeople mention how Owen knows her and they connect the dots that Owen was there when Joel was killed too. They decide to get to him to try and track down Abby. Ellie and Jesse kill some guards along the way trying to get into the castle.

- Owen and Mel have moved to a tower in the castle that is more secluded, and that’s where Ellie and Jesse find Owen and Mel in a heated discussion, Owen is immediately alerted because he recognizes Ellie. Mel panics and throws a vase at them, and the four get into a scrap, Ellie and Jesse use daggers while Owen and Mel are unarmed, Ellie stabs Mel in the neck as she tries to escape, and Jesse stabs Owen in the shoulder and side and then pins him down. They tie him up to question him and he’s distraught by Mel, who has bled out.

- Ellie learns that Mel was pregnant and starts freaking out. Jesse is also having a hard time keeping cool with this and Owen’s curses.

- Abby, Lev, and Yara get to the healer and get her arm fixed, but they are discovered by an angry gang of villagers who saw her and the Seraphites sneak in there. Abby and Lev have fight them to get away. Abby considers just running away with the two, but she looks up at Owen’s castle and gets to sinking feeling that something is horribly wrong.

- Yara and the healer hide out in a safe area while Abby and Lev head to castle.

- Ellie has collected herself a bit with the help of Jesse, and tries to get Owen to talk about where Abby is, but he is furious and completely unwilling to tell them anything. Jesse thinks that Abby will come to Owen and due to various info that Abby was there recently, and he persuades Ellie to not kill Owen, though she kicks him around a bit as revenge for Joel and still trying to get info.

- Abby comes upon the path Ellie took a few hours earlier and seeing the blood and dead guards and is alarmed, she rushes to the secluded tower she is familiar with from a higher window, and sneaks down in with Lev. She first sees Mel’s blood pool and then Jesse, then Ellie facing the other way, then Owen, tied up and bleeding.

- Abby gets the jump on Jesse and disarms him, she has her sword to his neck and Lev puts his bow on Ellie. But Ellie has scrambled over to Owen and put her dagger to his throat. They’re at a standoff and Ellie tries to barter for by saying that she was the one that caused Joel to kill Abby’s father and that the fight should just be between them. Abby says if that’s the case then they should duel each other with honor and have no one else get hurt.

- After some tense moments, Ellie says yes to the duel and they all tentatively put down their weapons. Abby says that they’ll duel alone in the field behind the walls of the town. Jesse is released and rejoins Ellie. Ellie warns if people come after her then she’ll kill Owen and the rest of Abby’s friends and they leave the tower.

- Abby rushes to Owen as soon as those two leave and her emotions flood out seeing him hurt and realizing the shock of what just happened. She cuts him out of his bonds and he begs her to not do the duel because he doesn’t trust Ellie and is afraid she’ll try something in the duel and kill Abby. She says that she has to go, and takes Lev and subtly alerts the guards to get Owen medical help before slipping out.

- Abby goes to the field where Ellie and Jesse are waiting, they tell Jesse and Lev to hang back and walk a distance away so they can’t hear or interfere with the two women. They tell them to stay out of it. Abby is in a heavier plate mail while Ellie is in lighter chain and mail. They both have longswords.

- Before they fight, Abby says something to the effect that Joel killed her father, and Ellie says she doesn’t care, Joel was her father. They then start to fight, any hit Abby gets on Ellie hits hard, but Ellie is faster and gets hits on Abby as well. At one point, Abby disarms Ellie but Ellie doesn’t stop, she starts brawling Abby instead. Abby tosses away her sword and begins hitting her unarmed too.

- Abby eventually asserts the upper hand and has Ellie pinned down in a slow choke. However, her disdain for Ellie being the cause of her father’s death and causing the death and injury of some of her friends begins to fade as she looks up and she sees Lev looking at her sad and scared. She lets go.

- Abby looks at Ellie who is gasping for breath on the ground and asks her “What good is it going to do? I hurt you for hurting me? Then someone else will come after me for the pain that will caused them. You only wanted to hurt me because I hurt someone who you loved. It will never end. Unless we end it right now. We decide enough is enough.” Abby cries and it hurts her to say that as she thinks of her father.

- Ellie silently cries as she thinks of Joel dead, but then of him alive, and then looking at Jesse, she remembers Dina and how she’d like to see her again. Ellie stares at Abby, which is hard at first, but eventually she sees less of a person she hates, and more of someone who is in pain; someone who is a lot like her.

- “Okay.” Ellie agrees, and she means it. The two slowly get up and walk back to Jesse and Lev. Ellie tells Jesse they’re going and he’s confused but follows her. When Abby reaches Lev she thanks him silently and then pulls him into a hug. The two head back to town.

- Time skip of around 6 months, Ellie has found more peace through meditation and being around her friends. Ellie, Dina, and Jesse are all really close and they decide that since Dina’s parents want her to get married that she’ll marry Jesse, but Ellie will be her secret lover and they’ll share Dina in a poly relationship. Ellie is also Dina’s sworn shield and the two often go on adventures together through the country. Later, Dina has JJ by Jesse and they settle down for a more homey lifestyle in a new village they create that is closer to Tommy’s.

- Tommy was angry for a few months at Ellie that she didn’t kill Abby or more of the people responsible, but his wife Maria becomes pregnant after years of them being unsuccessful at having kids, and once the baby is born he starts to let go of his anger and find happiness again.

- Abby and Owen reconcile, he mourns Mel and his baby and slowly heals. Abby, Lev, and Yara build a domicile near the sea they stay at most of the time. Isaac and his many troops attack the Seraphites and largely wipe them out, but he dies in battle. Some others scramble to take over his position but Owen stays out of it and has his men mind their own business. Owen also makes it known that Lev and Yara are his allies and not to be attacked. 

- A few months from that, things calm down more and Abby visits Owen and her friends living in his town often. They begin a relationship again, and eventually Owen proposes marriage to her. But, he clarifies that she’d be able to adventure with Lev and Yara and travel to their seaside house when she pleased. He also doesn’t want to be in charge so much as a lord and decides to delegate more power to his council so he could come and go more often as well.

- Abby tells him she has to think about it, but after telling Lev and Yara they encourage her so she comes back and tells Owen yes. The two are finally married and they all lead a happy, more free life with their adopted kids Lev and Yara, and eventually a baby together. 

Happily ever after, lol.

#fanfic #my fanfic #abby x owen

[sometimesrosy]

(1) Thank you for the gif(t)s of Misters Elba & Morley. I could always use a little more of them in my life ;) Sorry for the last rant but I’m perplexed by those regarding Bellarke as a six season platonic friendship possibly to turn romantic in the last stretch or not at all. And “turn” is generous since some prefer to use “forced” instead. I suppose it can technically be true but only in the strictest, most surface-level sense. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought of Bellarke as NOT part

(2) of a romantic narrative. I look back and see Bellarke as a three-sided dynamic- partnership, friendship, and romance, with each side of the triangle pushing and influencing the others and each season deepening the dynamic. Even season 1 had elements of all three. I’d say progression is the most accurate term to describe their story. Strangers of different hierarchical classes to political rivals to co-leaders to friends to lovers separated by trauma, politics, death, time, other partners to

(3) future couple. Not a single step exists in a vacuum. Their relationship and individual character development are pieces fit to form a complete puzzle over time. Or as I’ve come to see, a seamless 100-episode tale with interconnected threads from start to finish. The only right way to decipher meaning is to look beyond a collection of scenes to the full picture of what we have so far. All stories are chronicles of progression from one point to the next and romance plots are no exception. JR

(4) didn’t invent some newfangled revolutionary storytelling protocol. His story just requires us to look beneath the surface and connect the dots across a seven season sequence. By 6x10, there are no layers needed to be looked under. The romance is smack dab in the middle of the room for all to witness, figuratively and literally. Even the nonshippers can see it, it’s not exclusive to the trained eye of the romance lover. I thought I signed up for a great story years ago. But I never would’ve

(5) known HOW great it was without the thought-provoking, deep-dive analyses by you, jeanie205 and the 3rd in the triumvirate of fandom heroes, travllingbunny, the kind of insights that bring an accompanying joy to the show itself and leave one stupefied in awe. Thank you all, truly. I don’t have sure plans to watch the prequel yet but if the 3 of you will, it may just tip the scales for me into the affirmative. It’d be fun to geek out with you guys on a new-ish adventure from the start.

+++

I got chills when you said, 

Not a single step exists in a vacuum. Their relationship and individual character development are pieces fit to form a complete puzzle over time. Or as I’ve come to see, a seamless 100-episode tale with interconnected threads from start to finish.

That was the most unexpected thing about this show. That it wasn’t just another fun show with hot people in the apocalypse with shocking twists dealing with complex questions-- which would be good enough, you know? Lots of fun. No, it was more. I did NOT figure out that it was a novelistic show until we got to season 3 and even then I didn’t understand how LONG TERM a novel was being told here. Not a novel, more like a series. A novel would be season long, but the narratives here have lasted for 7 seasons. 

It is seamless. Subplots weaving in and out of the 7 seasons. Character arcs taking the whole series to complete. That actually really confused me in season 3, because I expected both Clarke and Bellamy to finish their hero’s journeys in that season, and instead, there I was, feeling like it was unfinished because they HADN’T returned from their journeys wiser and stronger, ready to change their worlds. Nope. They were still struggling and learning. 

Just because I SAW the hero’s journeys in season 3 (a little late, mind you, since they started in s1 in the ‘hot people in the apocalypse’ phase,) doesn’t mean THAT was the entirety of the hero’s journey. It actually stands to reason that if they’re on a hero’s journey, that it’s a whole series long journey. Oooh. But then this hiatus, someone was like... are you sure Clarke isn’t on a HEROINE’S journey? And I, not really being an expert on the heroine’s journey and only seeing the hero’s part of it (which is like the first half of the heroine’s journey?) had to go research it and LO AND BEHOLD, her journey was the HEROINE’S journey, which TOTALLY fits with the dual protagonist, yin/yang, dark/light, head/heart, binary stars, feminist, mythic, epic love story of it all. NOW it all makes sense, why I couldn’t understand that her hero’s journey hadn’t finished yet (because it shifted into the more unexpected heroine’s journey.)

It always frustrates me when people say I can’t admit I’m wrong and am delusional about bellarke, because I have continually adjusted my theories as the story has gone on, changing them when something is off and doesn’t match canon and THAT’S why my theories are still holding up, which they are. Because I keep checking them back against canon. And when canon confirms the theories I have, I keep using them. When canon josses my theories and headcanons, I adjust. I ask myself, okay where did I go wrong? what is he really saying here? I’ve been struggling, particularly with Raven and Murphy’s roles in the show, and talked to various people about them, because I couldn’t grab ahold of them. With shipping, particularly, things can get confused. I’m wondering if Raven’s love story is not for another person at all, what if it’s self love? Because her most consistent relationships have actually been with familial relationships. Clarke as sister. Bellamy as big brother. Abby as mom. Sinclair as dad. While the romances have failed her. (whether they intended to start out this way or not idk, since all the actors who played her love interests asked to leave or were fired.) And I’m wondering if Murphy’s main love story is actually a spiritual love story. His romance with Emori is a good one, but here he is now wondering about immortality and morality, and he’s always been concerned with that just not secure enough to have answers. Maybe spirituality is his route to finding peace within his soul and coping with his mental illness and trauma? IDK. ANYWAY

I don’t think this show is flawless, and maybe they’ve had to franken-stitch some of their plotlines together to fit when things didn’t work out, and maybe some of their subplots ended in a way that didn’t satisfy us because we wanted something BETTER for those characters even though the tragic ending was part of the larger narrative, but I agree that it is seamless, one leading to the other to the next. When I look back at the storylines I didn’t understand or didn’t like as much, I can see how they fit with the larger narrative. How they lead to the ending the whole show is heading towards.

It’s actually very exciting. It’s not a new way to tell stories, it’s an old one, but it’s not one we see on tv very often, with its ratings and early cancellations and dependence on seasonal !POW! endings to keep people watching, and it’s impatience with slow story telling. They COMMITTED to a long term story despite the risk, and that must have been really hard with the pressures from hollywood and the money people and fandom and reviewers and even the cast. it’s remarkable and I can’t wait to see how it’s wrapped up. No matter what the endings are for our fave characters, I think it will be fascinating to see. And being able to watch the whole show, knowing how it ends, and that it was all crafted to be that way, is going to be really cool. It’s impressive, actually. I think the future will actually be much kinder to this show than the present is. Watching it week to week, you can’t see the development so much, but when we get the whole thing, everyone will be able to see it. I think this series is going to count as a future classic. 

It’s like the reverse of GOT. We expected GOT to be novelistic, based on the epic ASOIAF novels as it was, we expected it to have a grand structure that pulled everything together and gave it a bigger meaning, and in the end, it was trash shlock with no meaning past boobies, action, trauma porn, and dragons. HOWEVER, The 100 was thought to be some trash teen scifi soap with no meaning but hooking up, action, trauma porn and apocalypses, and it’s ending up being an epic novelistic series with a grand structure that pulls everything together and gives it meaning. Basically, if JR had been hired by HBO to do GOT, he would have done it right. But D&D were hollywood hacks and flim flam men who only know how to do surface and don’t understand story. (and are also racist and misogynistic bullies.)

ANYWAY, nonny. Do you have a blog? You should be writing this stuff down under your own name. If you send it to me on anon because you don’t have your own blog, you should think about it. I’m pretty sure that @jeanie205 and @travllingbunny would agree with me. I have limited what meta I reblog due to past experiences, but I think other people would like to follow you.

#the 100 #epic story #novelistic #narrative arc #series finale

[onthesandsofdreams]

Lover’s Embrace

Fandom: ASoIaF Pairing: Fem!Ned x Rhaegar Rating: T Summary: When his time to leave Winterfell comes to a close, he gives Ned his personal email and phone number, she gives him hers. “Anytime you wish to speak Rhaegar, you can, I’ll listen.”

Once he is back in the solitude of his room in The Red Keep, he plays a song Ned taught him. It eases his mind of any worries.

And he falls asleep with thoughts of a snow maiden. Words: 2482 Notes: For the @asoiafrarepairs‘s ‘A dream of Spring’ event. Day 5: Flowers & Embrace. Modern Westeros. First long fic for this pair, hope you guys enjoy.

Read @ AO3

Rhaegar knows what people say of him behind his back.

The sad-eye Prince, the one marked by tragedy, the bookish heir, a man with a sense of doom, an oddity - even for his family, a man who barely anyone knows at all. They all know about him, they greet him, praise him, flatter him, try to befriend him, but none save Arthur truly know him.

And he’s in need of a bride.

Many men have offered their daughters. He has not missed that Prime Minister Lannister had brought his daughter to live with him, so very near the Red Keep. Lady Lannister is pretty, she will be a beauty, but that is not what he is looking for. But he has not missed all the looks Cersei Lannister sends him, how she takes it upon herself to follow him around whenever she can, nor does he miss how her niceness only extends to a certain point.

So he does what he thinks that would give him a break, he calls his cousin. Robert and he are fundamentally different, Robert’s loud and outgoing, easy to get along with and with a penchant for women. But at the end, he still decides to call him, maybe Robert can help with some distraction.

Robert - as it turns out - is at Winterfell. Visiting his friend’s family, tells him that he should come too, “All snow, but the people are good. You and Ned will probably get along. Big library, bigger than the one you have.” Says Robert.

So, he calls Duke Stark, Prince or not, it would be highly improper to simply show up, Arthur in tow and spend time there. Rickard Stark extends the invitation easily enough, “As long as you wish to stay, your Grace.”

He informs Arthur, his permanent bodyguard to inform his father and goes to pack his bags. He has dinner with his mother and little Viserys, his brother barely able to stay still on the table, his mother wishes him good luck on his upcoming trip, Viserys begs a gift.

Four days later, he’s off to Winterfell on a private plane, but he still knows that he will have to take a car towards Winterfell, since the airport is located at White Harbor. Duke Stark had promised to send a car and someone to fetch him and Arthur, advantages of royalty and nobility, he’s aware.

Much to his surprise, it’s Robert himself who comes and fetches him. He can tell is Robert due to his loud voice, and Robert’s height is also a tell-tale, when he grows closer to where Robert stands, he realizes that Robert brought a companion, and said companion is a woman.

“Ah there he is!” Robert booms. “Welcome to the North cousin!”

A tiny smile escapes him as Robert’s hug threatens to crush his bones. Bless Robert for being so open. “I’m surprised you came, cousin.”

“Bah, you have so little faith in me, it wounds me.”

He can see that the woman Robert came with has maintained a respectful distance. “Not so, simply thought it would be a man from Winterfell.”

Robert laughs, “Well, not a man, perse, but someone from Winterfell did come.” Then Robert turns and beacons the woman to approach. “Come on Ned! Meet my cousin!”

He freezes. Ned’s a woman?! He manages to collect his wits about him as the woman approaches, she’s taller than the average woman, deep grey eyes with brown hair, her face is serious and solemn. He watches as she gracefully bows, “Welcome to the North, your Grace. I am Eddara Stark, daughter of Rickard. It’s an honor and a pleasure to host you.” Her voice is low and husky, it sends a shiver down his spine.

He bows his head, then takes her hand and kisses it. “The honor and pleasure are all mine, I assure you Lady Stark, thank you for welcome.”

The smile she gives him is small, but it reaches her eyes. And he can’t look away from them.

*****

The first days in Winterfell have him adjusting to the cold. Winterfell itself is warm, and he’s been given a warm room, fur covers and there’s always a fire roaring in his room. Duke Stark is a solemn and serious man, respectful but he knows that this is a man who should not be crossed. The same can be said about the elder of his sons, Brandon is pure fire and almost a match for Robert, Lyan’s is Brandon, but smaller and Benjen’s is at that awkward age where he’s trying to figure who he is.

But he is most intrigued by Eddara - call me Ned, everyone does - Stark. She and Robert met in college, as they both attended Arryn’s University in the Vale. She is the complete opposite of both her brother and his cousin, which is why it is such a surprise that Robert actually has made a female friend. 

It’s Ned who takes him to the family’s library and keeps him company at his request. She speaks of life in the North, of Winterfell and her family; he has to coax her to talk about herself. As it turns out, she studied management and history. Loves books and riding, plays the violin, has a penchant for chocolate and loves quiet nights in.

Which begs the question. “How did you become friends with my cousin, Ned?” He finally asks one day as they are going over a book of legends.

Ned shrugs, “He made a pass on me, I told him off. He tried again, I punched him in the face. Then he laughed and said that he liked my spirit. He never made another pass, we’ve been friends since.”

He laughs.

*****

Rickard organizes a hunt, and to his surprise, Ned tags along. “Occasionally,” she says when he asks if she’s a hunter. “Sometimes it can be fun.”

She’s an excellent hunter, later that night, he begs a song from her. “I don’t sing your Grace.”

“I meant with your violin, my Lady,” he smiles at her.

Her blush is adorable. “Oh. Of course.”

Her playing is impeccable and he finds himself being soothed by a song of the North. He closes his eyes and lets the music wash over him. He praises her abilities after that. “Perhaps we could play together, if you were to humor me and teach me a Northen song, that is.”

She smiles at him. “Of course.”

*****

He’s been in Winterfell for nearly a month, and he finds himself constantly seeking Ned’s company. Oh he talks with Rickard, drinks with Brandon and Robert, teaches some sword lessons to Lyan and Benjen with Arthur’s help. But it’s Eddara whose company he craves. There is something about her, an air of calm and peacefulness that draws him in.

And he knows himself enough to know that he is falling in love. It would be terrifying, but something about Eddara Stark sets him at ease.

She once found him on the Godswood of Winterfell, sitting under the Heart Tree. “There is such sadness on your face, Rhaegar,” she finally spoke after she felt comfortable enough to call him Rhaegar, even if it was only in private. “What troubles you?”

He had been startled, he had been so very lost in his thoughts that he had not heard her approach. “Ned, you startled me. But as to your question, I don’t know. My mother has always said that grief was my constant companion.”

She is silent for a moment. “Then perhaps you should do something that makes you happy.”

Such simplicity, he smiles. “I like my music, and I enjoy playing it for others. Reading, it also helps distract my mind and it helps me forget...” he stopped himself.

“Forget the troubles in the Capital?” She finished for him. “Then, perhaps, if you would agree, maybe hold a small concert for those who work here? I’m sure our cook and the rest would be delighted. And our books are still there, and they are plenty.”

“Yes,” he says, encouraged by her gentle nudging. “The troubles in King’s Landing can give headaches.” He admits. “And as to the concert, I might enjoy that. I have never played for our staff, my father forbid it.”

“Well, the King’s not here. Play and sing to your heart’s content. If you have no objection, I will organize it.”

“Go ahead Ned, I’ll play.”

“That’s the spirit!”

That night after dinner, he played for an hour for the staff at Winterfell. The round of cheers after he finished were nothing compared to the beaming smile Eddara gave him.

*****

When his time to leave Winterfell comes to a close, he gives Ned his personal email and phone number, she gives him hers. “Anytime you wish to speak Rhaegar, you can, I’ll listen.”

Once he is back in the solitude of his room in The Red Keep, he plays a song Ned taught him. It eases his mind of any worries.

And he falls asleep with thoughts of a snow maiden.

*****

He begins to write and call Eddara whenever he can. Arthur makes note of it, teases him. “And who would have thought,” he can hear the smile on his friend’s voice. “That it took a snow lady to melt you down. Are you sure you’re the one with fire on your veins?”

He smiles, “Fire and Blood,” he answers. “I suppose I am. But I will not deny that I enjoy her company.”

“Just don’t mention her name around Lady Lannister, she might throw a fit.”

He rolls his eyes. “No, I’d rather spare myself the grief.”

*****

Rhaegar,

We at Winterfell are doing quite well. Father wishes me to take over our winter resorts, it’s quite the task, but I do admit to be happy that he thinks I can take over. Brandon is near engaged to Lady Catelyn Tully, and I’m quite excited. She’s wonderful and I look forward to having another woman here. I hope you are well.

With friendship, Ned.

Ned,

I’m happy for you. Good luck on the take over, it sounds daunting. But I know you can handle it. I am as well as I can be, wrote a song for mother’s birthday. Told Viserys some of the legends I read from the North, he’s quite pleased and now determined to see the Wall for himself.

With kind regards, Rhaegar.

*****

“And I told Brandon, ‘If you cheat on Catelyn, I will end you.’ He pretended to be offended, but I’m sure he appreciates the fact I actually like Catelyn. Ben is also quite taken with her.”

He chuckles. “I know Lady Catelyn, she’s quite serious and duty-minded, tell that rascal you call brother that I’ll aid you.”

“I will. That will keep him in line too.”

“Good.”

*****

For the first time in a very long time, he writes a ballad that doesn’t end in tragedy. His mother’s eyes shine bright and she’s smiling at the end of his impromptu performance. “It’s beautiful, my son.”

“Thank you mother,” he is. His mother’s opinion on his music has always been important.

“I sure will give my thanks to whichever lady inspired you.” She says and leaves the room, leaving him completely off-kilter.

*****

He sends flowers, chocolate and a book to Ned for her birthday. She sends him a text with a simple smile emoji. He can’t quite hide his smile for the rest of the day.

For his own birthday, he receives a case of ice-wine, a venture Ned has come up for the North, the wine is sweet and delightful. He gives his mother a bottle and like the dragon of his sigil, he hoards the rest.

*****

He finally asks her for a date one sleepy Spring night. Ned agrees, they have dinner in a fine restaurant in King’s Landing, a private room just for the two of them. Ned will be in King’s Landing for two weeks and he already has three dates planned.

When he takes her to the house the Starks own in King’s Landing, he leaves her at the door, but not before kissing her hand, wishing it was her lips.

*****

They date in secret, his mother eventually catches on and she just smiles. Helps him, in fact, arranges things so he can see her more often and gives him ideas for gifts and tokens.

“You are happier than I've ever seen you, that is all I want as a mother. And Lady Stark clearly makes you happy, then she already has my love.”

“...how?”

His mother simply gives him a mysterious smile. “You are my son, that’s how.”

*****

The first time they lay together, he loses himself to passion. To her lips, to her kiss, to her skin. For the first time, he feels like a dragon burning. It’s a kind of fire he did not know was possible. He loves it and loves her.

And he loves who he is when he is with her. And makes a decision.

*****

He goes to the court’s jeweler, his alibi is a new piece for his mother. Once behind closed doors, he asks the designer for a ring, something simple, but elegant. Selects a pigeon's blood ruby, placed horizontally surrounded by small diamonds.

It’s a piece that will suit Ned quite well, since most of her jewelry is understated. He knows she inherited most of her mother’s jewels, wears them on occasion, but her personal taste is much simpler. That is fine.

*****

It’s Robert who does the shovel talk.

But to his eternal surprise, he does it discreetly. “Ned told me,” he says over a glass of fine whisky. “And I’m warning you cousin,” the way he underlines that word is enough for him to understand that Robert means it. “That if you hurt her, I’ll break you. That is, if I beat any of the Stark men to you first.”

He lets his shoulders fall, “I assure you cousin, she will not be mistreated, nor hurt so long as I live.”

“Good. See that you keep your word.”

*****

The ring is on her finger, and passion has flared up again, like a flame that only needed a spark to ignite and burn down any defenses he had left. The room smells of the flowers he decorated it with, but all his thoughts narrow to the woman who drives him mad with passion.

Theirs is a love that is both calm and filled with passion. He has never stopped giving her flowers, by now he knows which ones she favors the most, even if she always welcomes even the humblest daisy. And he vows to always give her flowers, for any random moment, to remind her that she is in his mind.

Here, in the dark of the room, where they lose each other in a lover’s embrace, he knows, he’s found his queen. And he has found his home.

#asoiafrarepairweek #asoiafrare #ned x rhaegar #rhaegar x ned #Ned Stark #Rhaegar Targaryen #pre asoiaf fic #au: genderbent #au: modern westeros

[senseandaccountability]

writer asks meme

ooh, I was tagged by @heyitsharding, thank you! I’m tagging @obliobla, @thievinghippo, @arlome, @persephonechiara and @threewhiskeylunch maybe? I’m awful at tagging, you don’t have to feel obliged/everyone else feel free.  ---

ao3 name: lilith_morgana

fandoms: Dragon Age and Lucifer are my main fandoms and those I’m still active in. Also Mass Effect, Skyrim, SWTOR and some other stray fandoms are represented. I wrote a lot of ASoIaF once upon a time and my first online fandom was Harry Potter. number of fics: 72 on ao3. 

fic i spent the most time on: Cartography, definitely. It’s long, it has plot and I wanted to pace the unlikely romance in a way that made people think it made as much sense as it did in my own head.  fic i spent the least amount of time on: A lot of my oneshots are quick writing, I’d say most of my fics under 3K are mostly spurs of the moment/concepts I want to try out. I write fast in general. 

shortest fic: Not counting drabbles/prompts that are part of some collection ao3 tells me Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us is the shortest at roughly 700 words. Then I have a lot of fics at around 1-2K. 

most hits: There are names for what binds us, hands down. Followed by Not in our stars, my still unfinished Sith Warrior/Vette story. Though I think it’s safe to say that if I had posted my Loghain/Cousland fics to ao3 from the start, the stats would be a bit different. 

most kudos: There are names for what binds us. 

most comment threads: There are names...

most bookmarks: There are names... Though here the Lucifer fandom has changed the list so number two and three are And all this devotion I never knew at all and O you were the best of all my days. If we count ffnet, I think In All These Wasteful Hours/Cartography would win.

highest total word count: Cartography at 170K. 

favorite fic i wrote: I’m very fond of In All These Wasteful Hours and it still doesn’t make me cringe much when I re-read it, some ten years later.  I’ve written some Lucifer stories that are pretty good. I like Entropy because I loved writing Zaeed. And this is the best SWTOR fic I wrote, I think: Every hollow has its favourite sound. 

fic i want to rewrite/expand on: I recently took down my post-DAI ensemble roadtrip story because I have no hope of ever finishing it in that shape or form. Which means I want to tell the story in some different way.  And my Cousland/Loghain universe is wide-open, waiting for new canon. 

share a bit of a wip or story idea you’re working on: Currently trying to wrap up some WIPs and in between that I’m indulging myself in some Trevelyan/Cullen because the romance makes me feel but it’s also annoying. Or might not be if I can make it work for my Trevelyan who is emphatically not the sort of Inquisitor that I feel the writers had in mind for this romance. This fic will probably never get posted but it keeps me entertained. I’m also writing a Loghain/Hawke friendship fic that absolutely no one except for me wants to read.

“I remember your name from Ostagar.” He says it levelly, almost in passing. “From the roll of soldiers. There were two of you, if I remember correctly.” Hawke raises an eyebrow, the sting in her chest at the thought of Carver still a faded wound, dull and itching.  “That was many years ago,” she says and reaches for her goblet of warm, spiced wine. It’s freezing outside and she’s longed all day for a chance to sit down in a warm tavern. “Yes.” Loghain nods, an unreadable expression on his face. “Yet I recall it.” “I believe you. I just think it seems… obsessive.” He gives a low chuckle, as dark and unexpected as the fact that the two of them sit here together right now. “There is truth in that. I used to learn the names of all the soldiers under my command.” It’s a pity Aveline isn’t here. She would like him, Hawke is sure of that.  “Did it help?” she asks, though the answer will hardly matter. Loghain takes a swig of his ale and glances sideways at her. “Help with what?” “The guilt?” “Hardly.” He pauses, scrutinizes her face for a moment. “Did you lose someone at Ostagar?” She leans back further in her seat, trying to loosen the sore muscles in her neck by forcing down her shoulders. The room is still only half-full and business seems slow. “No,” she says. “I lost all my people afterwards. Mostly in Kirkwall. None of it could rightly be called your fault.” “Is it yours then?” “Probably.” 

#writing meme #writing asks #dragon age #mass effect #lucifer #my writing

[mountain-ash-and-rusted-iron]

this is an oc masterpost of all my haf-formed ocs languishing on pinterest with their messy aesthetics and unedited blurbs, in roughly chronological order of their creation, plus sorted by fandom. this post is only asoiaf, harry potter, hunger games, and riverdale, cos i have tooooooo many original characters otherwise and the post was getting incredibly long. (note that i love my ocs but these one’s are not polished or even the final versions of their characters, i just wanted to post them lol)

under a read more, if you’re on mobile start scrolling i guess, sorry,,,

Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire:

Laeya Targeryen: (child of Rhaella and Aerys Targaryen, born 280 AC - three years older than Danaerys) 

Fearful of her impending marriage, Laeya is eleven when she takes her younger sister and flees across the sea to Dorne, hiding herself and Dany with dyed hair and badly controlled magic. As Leia and Dani Sand they learn to live normally. At 15 Leia joins the Royal Guard and secures Dany work as a tailor's apprentice. When she is 17, an assassin tries to kill her in front of the Dornish court and everything changes...

- so laeya straight up has magic, which im considering an extension of the dragon thing dany has - she can control flame and for the disguise uses her ‘inner fire’ to make her eyes white-blue like super hot flames, cos the purple eyes are super distinctive. and then she’s discovered and suddenly politics are happening. honestly she’s entirely a way for me to remove the child marriage bits of the targaryen storyline (stop marrying off your twelve-year-old baby sister viserys u asshole) - in terms of meta/basics, laeya doesn’t have a fc cos most of my early ocs don’t, and bcs i picture her as emilia clarke with faked dark hair and blue eyes lol

and a quick aesthetic below:

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Kyrra Snow: (child of Robert Baratheon and Maery Snow, birthdate ???)

Kyrra Snow is the eldest natural-born child of Robert Baratheon, current King of Westeros, and daughter of Maery Snow, a Southron (but Northern-born) merchant woman. After her mother realises Kyrra was growing up a little too much like her father in looks and needed to leave the far South before she caught the wrong sort of attention, Kyrra was sent off to travel with her aunt and cousins. She is 17 and heading further north, to Winter Town, when Jon Arryn dies.

- kyrra’s another child of everyone’s favourite asshole king, and she’s got a lot of people after her head, but she just wants to travel and continue her work as a simple peddler. (riiip poor girl) honestly she’s not that developed but yolo -

aes:

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Brynn Stark: (child of Catelyn and Eddard Stark, Robb’s twin sister)  

Brynn believes in honour and family, and she is loyal to Winterfell and the North above all else. Likes - archery, embroidery and weaving. Betrothed to [some young Northern lord] to keep the bonds between the Norther families strong.

-i basically made brynn as a contrast to sansa’s pro-southnness and excessive femininity and arya’s anger and desire for swords (relatable mood tho lmao). so brynn is here to mediate, extoll the virtues of both needlework and weapons, make a decent marriage to someone she likes, if not loves, and hold down the fort in the North while shit gets increasingly messier in the South. and a possible faceclaim is Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey - 

aes:

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Rosienne Lannister: (child of Joanna and Tywin Lannister, born 273 AC)

Rose is looked at by the realm with dismissal, a consolation prize for her father, a spare daughter only useful for matchmaking, but at least able-bodied and pretty, unlike her brother. After a long betrothal, Rose is married to Willas Tyrell at the age of eighteen, cementing her role as the next Lady of High Garden...

- Rosie/Rose is a bonus Lannister, bcs why not. likes cyvasse and the harp, soft and kind and maternal, powerful in her own way. originally she was from a minor divergence where joanna survives tyrion’s birth and goes on to have another kid, but not sure if i’ll keep that aspect, so for now she’s tyrion’s twin -

and her aes (yes that quote is cropped, no i don’t care rn):

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honourable mentions to my other got underdeveloped got/asoiaf ocs who need more effort before i post properly about them:

Tamlen Storm, a rookery apprentice (working for the Maester of House Tully, managing the ravens) who may or may not be a reincarnated si-oc trying to save westeros, 

and an unnamed northern huntress who stumbled into the plot somehow and wants her normal life back (entirely inspired by Keira Knightley as Gwyn in Princess of Thieves, when she’s doing archery stuff and looking v butch).

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Harry Potter:

Taurus ‘Ara’ Lestrange:  (child of Bellatrix and Roldolphous Lestrange, born 1978) 

Raised by the Goblins after a legal mix-up following her parents' imprisonment in Azkaban, Taurus is good with a sword and aiming to be the next Minister of Magic. She attends Hogwarts with the other magical kids her age, under the fake identity Ara Burke, unknown cousin of a minor half-blood family. When the Potter brat’s drama starts destroying her change at an education just as her fourth year, her OWL prep year, begins, Ara intervenes.

- im tangentially aware that as bellatrix’s kid she’s almost occupying the place of whats-her-name from the cursed child, but considering that i know nothing about the cursed child and don’t care about it anyway, i have elected to ignore this. her actual parent might turn out to be some smitten half-blood from a minor branch of the Greengrass family, or it might actually be Rodolphous, who knows. slightly inspired by the fic ‘Harry Crow’ (by robst on ff.net) where harry is raised by the goblins -

messy aes:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Valerian Potter: (child of Lily and James Potter, born 1980)

After the Potter twins’ parents are murdered by Voldemort, they’re dumped on the doorstep of Number 4, Privet Drive. Dealing with two traumatised magical orphans, Petunia and Vernon Dursley turn to violence and neglect to stay in control, acting far more harshly than expected. With the arrival of two Hogwarts letters, life gets complicated incredibly quickly. (Self-sufficient and scarred from abuse, Val and Harry are immediately Sorted into Slytherin). 

- val’s fic is basically an angst fest, okay,,, -

aes:

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and shout-outs to: holly addison potter, a half-baked reincarnation si-oc (i love that concept a lot, can u tell) and my fav girl thea dursley, who already has her own fic and so isn’t getting a proper spot in this post 

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The Hunger Games:

Asher: (District Two, age 18) 

[rip no blurb for asher]

-asher is a career from two, who wins the 70th games. mostly im focusing on her recovery and how the games function in two, with training volunteers and mentoring and collecting sponsors, plus eventually the rebellion. lots of the D2 headcanon i have is inspired by @/lorata but i defintely made a distinct effort to have my own stuff, cos where’s the fun in plagiarism -

aes for Asher’s Games:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  Rowan Everdeen: (District Twelve, age 19)

Rowan will do anything to protect her family. This extends to going to Head Peacekeeper Cray on a cold winters night, charging the most she can get for her virginity.  It extends to Reaping Day, when she steps out in front of the crowd and says “I volunteer as tribute” in the steadiest voice she can muster.  It extends to clawing her way out of the Arena, bloody and exhausted, with blades in her hands and violence kept tucked behind her teeth. It extends further, to a simple ‘Yes, President Snow’ when he coldly, carefully implies her family might meet with an accident if she doesn’t play the good little Victor (and fuck the people who pay the Capitol for her company). It extends to joining the Rebellion, to looking President Coin directly in the eye and agreeing to be a Mockingjay, a symbol for the people to rally around.

- another everdeen kiddo! as the big sister, rowan volunteers for prim, and goes through the Games - she’s a healer and a hunter, and a decent enough actor that she can manage interviews and a camera presence, unlike katniss. rowan also pairs well with a minor au i have, where the reapings are spaced out over a week and official training is a longer, giving the capitol a nice, long buildup to get excited and place bets, etc., and giving the poor, underfed tributes from the outer districts a better chance, which makes for more interesting television and better Games -

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Adrasteia Crane: (The Capitol, age 28) Unlike her big brother, Adrasteia doesn’t want to be a Gamemaker. Instead, she wants to create clothes, artwork, to enrapture the Capitol. She wants to be a Games stylist. After years of design school, of working her way up the ranks, first a PA’s assistant, and then fetching and carrying for Twelve’s prep team, and then eventually on a prep team for the dull tributes from Six, Adrasteia Crane finally has what she wants - the position of stylist for District Three’s male tribute in 74th Hunger Games. 

- tbh adrasteia is only seneca crane’s sister because i couldn’t think of a suitable last name for her lmao. i think i’d actually prefer her to be unattached to any major canon players. however, his death is a good motivation for her to join the rebellion, so we’ll see. she’s got a bit of the capitol fashion thing going too, with soft pink hair and diamond-effect skin on her face and shoulders -

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also bonus hunger games content: another oc, Sarsaparilla Verran, from District Eleven, fifteen and alone when she goes into the Games. An orphan, her siblings lost to the Community Home system years ago, her relatives dead or uncaring. So, Rilla is a wee lonely bab tbh. she did not want this, unlike most of my other hg ocs, and she’s not excited for weeks of murder. she just wants her family back, but since that isn’t possible, she’ll build a new family instead. and uuhhhhh,  spoiler alert, she dies before she can have this ://///

and my hunger games aus - a canon divergence where katniss joins the careers instead of peeta, her desire to go home to her family outweighing her reactive hate for the concept of training/volunteering to kill other teens, and a fem!Haymitch au where she’s a little wiser to the dark side of the capitol before she commits acts of rebellion (she still rebels anyway tho, just smarter).

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Riverdale:

Cat Cooper: (middle child of Alice and Hal Cooper) Cat Cooper (17) is the black sheep of the Cooper family. Her piercings, brightly dyed hair and connections to the Southside Serpents make her the odd one out among her sisters and constantly at odds with Alice Cooper. Cat’s life is occupied with her Serpent friends, work at a local coffee shop, and training - martial arts, supplemented with cross country, gymnastics and swimming. Until her older sister is shipped off to places unknown and her baby sister starts getting caught up in murder investigation with the absent Serpent heir... 

- haven’t decided between Catelyn or Catherine for Cat’s full name lmao. she used to be Kit, actually, but I changed it cos i prefer Kit to solely be my divergent oc (kit serafim). Cat is an ADHD disaster who loves her sisters and her friends and wants to get the hell out of Riverdale on a sports scholarship (she does either boxing or karate mainly, need to figure that bit out) -

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Georgie Andrews: (child of Mary and Fred Andrews)

Georgie likes soft drinks, cheerleading, and hanging out with the Blossom twins and Polly Cooper, their closest friends and a welcome distraction from their own problems. After Polly and Jason vanish, Georgie’s support system is almost gone, and they has to deal with everything they’ve been bottling up, just in time for Fred Andrews to get shot.

- also just angst ngl.  so georgie’s gender is basically ???, they enjoy cheerleading and not much else. they spend half their time dealing with depression, by trying to ignore stressful/hard topics and focus on the good side of everything. this isn’t a great long-term coping mechanism and has the fun side effect of pissing of the people around him when she seems unable to be serious or empathetic to someone else's pain (bcs she’s too busy deflecting for the sake of her own fragile mental health), so it gets fun when fred is shot and archie starts getting in too deep with the lodges -

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Sera Thornstone: (parents ???) Southside Serpent. Going to the Riverdale Community College and running errands for FP Jones. And secretly meeting up with her Ghoulie lover down by the Sweetwater where nobody goes. 

- everything about sera is vague and undecided lmao. but she has a ghoulie gf/bf/nbf? and they’re hiding that they were down by the river on the 4th of july, cos a serpent is an immediate suspect. going to community college to work on getting general credits before saving up for fancy school for law or journalism. the aes isn’t entirely accurate cos sera’s built from the remains of another serpent oc who i scrapped (she does have a baseball bat tho) -

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and honourable mentions to jen johnson and octavia blossom-murphy, my other riverdale ocs who actually have content, plus an in-development unnamed oc who gets adopted from the soqm by the Muggs family and growsup with Ethel. and my riverdale role reversal au, which i will never write but have some nice aesthetics for under the tag wip: bughead role reversal au.

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all my mini-aesthetics here are unsourced images/from pinterest. any similarities to other people or characters, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. 

alrighty that’s it. now i have to tag this behemoth argh

#ocapp #ashandrustediron ocs #ashandrustediron edits #i say edits #i mean neatly cropped screenshots #lmao #fandom: harry potter #fandom: the hunger games #fandom: a song of ice and fire #fandom: game of thrones #fandom: riverdale #ashandrustrediron writes #time to tag the ocs who will actually get content later #oc: rosienne lannister #oc: tamlen storm #tam actually has a fic outline unlike most of these other westerosi ocs lol #oc: ara lestrange #oc: asher #no last name bcs volunteers from two don't have last names #they belong to the capitol and their district #<- fun fact about that fic i guess #oc: rowan everdeen #oc: adrasteia crane #none of the riverdale ocs will get a tag bcs i already have riverdale oc fic im working on #long post #long post cw #oh and some warnings for the stuff brushed upon in the blurbs i guess #gender dysphoria #violence #child marriage

[thefudge]

How is it right that Dany can crucify people when not everyone who she crucified is guilty. Why is collective punishment ok just because the people being punished belong to one class instead of the other. I thought collective punishment of a group whether or not they are guilty was wrong.

i don’t know where this is coming from, but it’s an interesting question and here’s how to look at it, from my point of view

a) i think the show/books are pretty clear in not totally condoning dany’s actions against slavers, despite her passionate reasoning (the show doesn’t do a good job with the ethical ramifications, but rather the practical ones). the issue is not solely rooted in morality; it’s also the fact that collective punishments don’t work on a practical level. dany’s reformation of slaver’s bay is a complicated process which she had hoped to streamline by simply purging the slavers’ class indiscriminately (more on that later on). GRRM and the showrunners (in their hamfisted way) are pointing out that it takes more than that to rehabilitate these societies. 

b) “ when not everyone who she crucified is guilty” - this is our modern outlook on things, but in the world of asoiaf, the mentality is “you have to raze the whole village”, a principle applied by many characters in both books and show. basically, you don’t leave survivors of a certain group or community you mean to disempower, because they will rise up and try to stir that shit again (in this case, they’ll try to bring back slavery, and wouldn’t you know it, the slavers/masters in neighboring cities do. in fact one of the reasons they want to invade mereen is to bring back the good ol’ days. the discussion is a bit more complicated in the books, because there’s a lot more political chaos on both sides). however, you can’t exterminate everyone and call it a day. GRRM underlines that the “raze the whole village” model doesn’t work in the long run, because there are always ppl who survive and remember what happened (”the north remembers” is coming for the boltons in the books), or alternately, the damage done by the extent of the violence has ramifications that the perpetrators don’t even understand.

the best example of this is tywin obliterating house reyne (and btw, unlike dany, he doesn’t just execute the male adult “masters”/nobility, he makes sure no infant, woman, or elder person survives the purge). in theory, tywin is removing a tumor so that nothing will grow back. the problem is, the story of house reyne became infamous. and this made house lannister look formidable and impregnable, BUT, very importantly, it imposed a future pattern: house lannister from now on will have to keep one-upping the competition, secure their power by totally exterminating other houses. if they do anything less, their prestige wanes, i mean there’s even a song about it, for christ’s sake. it’s basically like crossing a line. once you do that, you have to keep crossing it to maintain your position. basically, tywin showed his hand: he doesn’t negotiate, show compassion, or adapt, which makes the whole “a lannister always pays his debts” more of a funeral dirge than a bargaining chip. it also makes house lannister inflexible and rooted in a model that can’t survive a modernization of westeros. (which reminds me, i know there’s talk in the books that tyrion is the child that most resembles tywin, but i think cersei isn’t far off. she has the same mentality of “leave no survivors” which she thinks is very clever cuz she got it from her daddy lol anyway)

these are the ramifications leaders, both good and bad, don’t always see. dany, who is a much better person than tywin all around (and no, i won’t debate this), is also slowly required to up the ante, to cross certain lines. and once you do that, you have to keep going forward (”if i look back, i’m lost”). 

this is all to say that while we as readers/viewers can perceive dany’s actions as problematic, dany and her contemporaries would not, not to the extent we do. in the world of asoiaf this is just another strategy. on the other hand, while readers/viewers didn’t necessarily celebrate the crucifying of slavers & nobility, no one wept over it either. and here i contend with the ethical argument:

(more under the cut cuz this is getting too long) 

 as many others have argued, dany doesn’t understand the hierarchy or the inner workings of these societies and may be killing innocent people while other guiltier masters may get away (163 masters for 163 children is a tough thing to get 100% right). but dany doesn’t have the resources or the ability to measure everyone’s degree of complicity. that’s why in modern society, collective punishment is frowned upon, you just can’t quantify that shit. that doesn’t mean whole groups don’t benefit off of exploitation and must be exonerated. we just don’t resort to indiscriminate violence. in the asoiaf universe, however, when you can’t quantify it, you do what you think is the next best thing which is to root out the tumor. who is likely to reinstate slavery and rise against dany? the masters & nobles. it should also be pointed out that the crucifying is her passionate response to the earlier crucifying of slave children. 

no, dany’s actions aren’t right (or smart, in the long run) and she suffers the consequences for it since she hasn’t really eradicated the problem but 1) the slavers are forcing her hand. she has to respond to the crucifying of children, otherwise she will appear to the people she’s liberating as not much different from the slavers, 2) she is acting on the assumption of the greater good (and her own great destiny as liberator), which can very easily blind a leader to the nitty-gritty of day-to-day politics.

basically, dany is #trying but failing due to 1) deeply flawed systems that were installed long before she got there and 2) her own skewed perception of what a leader can do. 

now, does this make her a blood-thirsty tyrant? i say no. i say she is a good mirror for the unexamined righteous self. she is actually more like us than we’d care to admit. we like to think our heart is in the right place as we strive to do the right thing, but sometimes we end up making things worse. 

and this is coming from someone who has always squinted at dany’s biased and rose-tinted portrayals in the fandom. i’ve always been a dany skeptic who sees a tragic, rather than truly heroic figure in her. she is meant to be an anti-heroine, make no mistake about it, but she will never be the gross caricature d&d fashioned in 1 and ½ episodes. like i said, d&d actually made me more of a dany fan after their reductive conclusion. 

the recent dany love from many ppl stems not from deciding to uncritically “stan” her 5ever, but as a response to d&d’s bad writing. once GoT is put to bed, i think there’s room for more nuanced discourse (and there’s a lot of it already). and as an aside, you can still support and cherish dany and see where her faults lie. 

as a second aside, i always find it interesting that such complex debates about ethics always revolve around dany, but not so much when it comes to other characters. the northeners’ purity politics & isolationism on the show, for instance (which extends to those barbarous wildlings that have to go back beyond the wall)? unexamined. but dany tries to do smth about slavery??? what a heinous human being. again, i know the argument is made in good faith, because after all, the books themselves are supposed to make you question dany’s actions. but i don’t think GRRM meant for ppl to dedicate so much time thinking about those poor, poor masters/slavers. GRRM is rather pointing out the fallacies of collective punishment as a rule, as you mentioned yourself (it never works, it isn’t moral etc) but we’re not supposed to become devil’s advocate for the oppressors (i mean his depiction of some of those nobles & slavers in book 5? priceless. they’re all dehumanized caricatures, or just plain dehumanized). 

#replies #daenerys targaryen #asoiaf #anti got #got meta #my thoughts #slavery

[kewltie]

YEAR END FIC REVIEW 2019

This year I wrote:

The Dumpster Fire - a bunch of random ‘verses 

to catch the golden snitch 

we're young gods 

all these delicate things 

no peace, no quiet in your eyes 

rip out those wings, darling 

the little prince 

interlude: world's okayest dad 

—to the moon and back 

as the moon bears witness (i swear to you) 

ao3 tells me that’s 95k wc if we discount random teasers/snippets i only wrote on tumblr & twitter than we’re well over 100k. 

Overall thoughts

I honestly thought I wrote less this year giving how many actual new stories I have up on ao3, but over 100k is still a pretty admirable job so far so I can’t be all that disappointed in myself. I don’t have an actual estimate wc on everything bc I post random snippets/teasers on twitter and than move the more edit and polish version on tumblr AND THAN i move it to my dumpstire fire collection if it fit. so like, i don’t know exactly how much wc i did but still moderately impressive given how profoundly lazy i can be lol /o\. 

there were a lot of things i wanted to do but i didn’t get around to it bc i held myself back from committing to various big projects due to my promise/obligation to updating social media au :S. which i guess is good bc i didn’t add on to MORE WIPs but also depressing bc im stuck in a rut bc of it. i hope to explore more projects next year!

My best story of the year

“we’re young gods” prob my psuedo mad max post-apocalyptic wasteland abo au... GOD WHAT A MOUTHFUL. outside!pov has always been one of my fav narrative piece to write esp when im building a evolving world that come with it. i love a post-apocalyptic landscape, the fight and survive theme has always been a deep fascination for me plus w/ abo which makes it even more interesting. i talk a lot about the idea of kingmaker and the person behind the seat of power/throne a lot and i wanted that deeply in a lot of my ‘verses bc stories of movers and shakers of the world are always fun bc their actions have such HUGE RAMIFICATION and i always like politics and wars a little too much lol /o\. 

My favorite story of the year

“to catch the golden snitch” bc i really like my veela!katsuki fic the most. prob bc it plays into adapting some familiar concept/theme/source (HPverse) and putting my fav spin on them with bkdk. i have always been fond of creaturefics in hp fandom so i knew i wanted to make another VEELAFIC bc why the fuck not. it also play into my fav trope of katsuki being something inhuman, dangerous, and beautiful and also SO COMPLETELY WHIPPED FOR THS HUMAN BOY ;D. 

Most fun story to write

“to the moon and back” aka DRUNK!IZUKU FIC!!!! bc HELLO DRUNK IZUKU IS THE ABSOLUTELY BEST.

Story with the single sexiest moment

“all these delicate things’ or aka the panties fic bc unf i really like see man indulge in feminine things esp when they’re someone who had such a history of violence like izuku who had suffer so much hurt in his life; AND ON HIS BODY which are riddled with scars and i think should allow yourself to be kind/softer to yourself and things like panties are so DELICATE that idk i really dig that juxtaposition??? A LOT. 

Most "holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story

“rip out those wings darling” aka mutual yandere fic i was originally given a prompt by someone but my giftee dropped out so I RAN WILD AND CAME UP WITH THIS BULLSHIT. idk i always like fucked up relationship esp when it’s mutually assured destruction kind of fucked up where they both equally crazy about each other and im all for that. fandom has a habit of making izuku being super creepy stalker but they make him violent rapist and that doesn’t sit well with me. you can make izuku creepy and stalkerish w/o playing into that kind of things :S. i hate how darkfics these days are like fall under that purview when you can have darkfic w/o necessitating sexual violence... like pls explore mindgames and emotional/mental manipulation more like man i think that’s much more interesting so i tried that with this fic. izuku doesn’t hurt others or hurt katsuki BUT HURT HIMSELF to manipulate katsuki to care for him and im like SO ABOUT THAT bc it play into his self sacrificing nature w/o me bending his characterization to make him into something recognizable and katsuki violent obsession and possession with izuku is ramped up but it isn’t sexualized but about ownership and wanting to izuku enough to to kill and idk i dig their mutual destructive habits about each other lol. 

Story that shifted my own perception of the characters

i swear to god i don’t like the villain!deku trope. im more indiff to it than anything but the trope tend to twist him into something unrecognizable to me but when i was coming up about this ‘verse i wanted izuku to be a bit jaded and betrayed by the world/society but still SO EARNEST AND HOPEFUL about it even though his goals has twisted in a way that by saving it he has to break it first. somehow trying to true to himself as he slip further and further in darkness and i just find that kind of duality fascinating????? like how do i keep in character but make him fall and see his struggles b/t both sides and i find myself liking villain!deku just a tiny, A TINY more and open so much potential. 

Hardest story to write

“as the moon bears witness” bc i did a rushed job on it and I HATE IT W/ THE FIRE OF TEN THOUSANDS SUNS. there’s so much i wanted to include but i fucked up and i hate how much I FUCKED UP ON IT. this is def the fic i regretted the most bc i knew what i wanted but i couldn’t exactly execute it correctly but instead of trying to think of a way to fix it i just let it go and i hate it and myself ever since than. UGH. 

Biggest disappointment

"AS THE MOON BEARS WITNESS” for the exact same reason as above. i want to rewrite this so SO BAD and i will. 

Biggest surprise

i didn’t have any surprise fics tbh. everything that i wrote is pretty much under my purview LOL but i found myself being more active on twitter the last half of the year and writing more threads (i.e. live writing) than moving it on tumblr. a lot of pieces i written on twitter was sudden for me and took me hostage but ya know what i go with the flow anyway bc what can i say im just a weak, weak girl w/ zero self control. 

Most unintentionally telling story

maybe “no peac, no quiet in your eyes”? I think that idea slapped me across the face bc i spent a week getting really obsessed with asoiaf fics on ao3 and man I LOVE POLITICS AND WARS?? did i mention that??? i love dynastic rules, warring kingdoms, and a love earth shattering enough to move mountains and i wanted to see that so much so that ‘verse kind of happened. 

Story I haven't written yet, but intend to

omfg SO MANY JUST SOOO SOOO MANY. i would really to get around to writing a full fledged fic of either surrogate au or sperm donor au bc i love that kind of unconventional family and romcom are like YA KNOW MY WEAKNESS. 

Goals for this year:

like every year i keep saying i want to do tododekubaku fic and maybe 2020 WILL BE MY YEAR??

finish social media ch 2 before/around my bday of this month as a gift to myself a;sjdf;alsjdf lol 

take on more projects that won’t land in the dumpstire fire collections

explore new fic avenues bc i always like trying new things and breaking in new genre/tropes bc why the fuck not

write all THE CLICHES and don’t let anyone tell me otherwise about my omega!deku loving ways

#year end fic meme

[lodessa]

Fic Writer Tag Game

tagged by @janiedean, @thank-god-and-you, and @fanoftheknight!

AO3 name: lodessa 

Fandoms:  Okay, I’m splitting this up because I have written in too many!

Major:

Star Trek: Voyager (72)

Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire (48)

Real Person Fiction (24)

Veronica Mars (24)

Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling (21)

Mid-level:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer /Angel the Series (15)

Star Trek: Discovery (10)

The Office (US) (8)

Doctor Who (6)

Revolution (TV) (6)

Firefly/Serenity (6)

Grey's Anatomy (5)

I Dabbled:

Longmire (TV) (4)

The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher (4)

Arthurian Mythology (3)

Arrow (TV 2012) (3)

His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (2)

Ancient Greek Religion & Lore (2)

Bones (TV) (2)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2)

Codex Alera - Jim Butcher (2)

One Offs:

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Dollhouse, Almost Human, Star Trek: The Next Generation, iZombie, Watchmen, Big Love, Babylon 5, Rome Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Journeyman.

Number of fics: 276!

Fic I spent the most time on: Salvation and Rapture For the Lonely (Doctor Who, Martha/Nine), which I started in 2008 and finished in 2018!

Fic I spent the least time on: That is a many way tie.  I used to write a lot of short quick things.

Longest fic: (Discounting my co-authored works) Parameters (Star Trek: Voyager, Janeway/Chakotay) at 46,345 words.

Shortest fic: One Dance (Star Trek: Voyager, Janeway/Chakotay) at 141 words (because I tend to stash drabbles into a work collecting multiple rather than spam the tag)

Most hits: Temptations of the Flesh (A Song of Ice and Fire, Jon Snow/Melisandre, Sansa/Littlefinger) at 15,327 hits (apparently people really like dark fic)

Most kudos: Parameters (Star Trek: Voyager, Janeway/Chakotay) at 507 kudos.

Most comment threads: Dragon Marked (Game of Thrones, Daenerys/Jorah) with 92 comment threads for the 8 currently published chapters... which I really need to continue.

Most bookmarks: No Longer the Maid of Tarth (A Song of Ice and Fire, Jaime/Brienne) with 78 bookmarks

Total word count:  872,893 words

Favourite fic I wrote: I am terrible with favorites... truly. 

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on:

Not counting my WIPs (Stumbling [Star Trek: Voyager, Janeway/Chakotay], k’war’ma’khon [Star Trek: Discovery], and Dragon Marked [Game of Thrones, Dany/Jorah]. ) 

I would say The Smallest Twine (Star Trek: Voyager, Janeway/Chakotay... though the two planned sequels open up into TNG and DS9 as well), which is an AU Prequel for Voyager, but also sets up the possibility of a very different trajectory for the end of the Cardassian War (as explored by all three 24th century Trek series).  Butterfly effect and all that.  

Share a bit of a WIP or a story idea you’re planning on:

Since I was tagged multiple times, I’ll preview a couple things I am (theoretically) working on.

For @janiedean, my ASOIAF book!verse canon compliant Jaime/Brienne, Davos/JonC, Sansa/Aegon someday maybe epic:

“I thought she’d be safe here…” Brienne called out to herself as much as Jaime as their captors shoved her forward away from him, feeling foolish for having thought the wars would have left her home untouched.  “I thought we all would be.”

I should have known, she felt, even as she knew there was no reason for her to have suspected.  Perhaps, if they had lingered longer in White Harbor, they might have heard word of the raids surrounding Cape Wrath.  But how could they have?  They were none of them inconspicuous, even with Sansa’s hair dyed.

The Kingslayer and two women who half of Westeros believed to be the same. A fine catch for mercenaries to sell to the highest bidder.   How could you have been so stupid? she berated herself.

That said, though the Golden Company named Westeros as their home, these men came from Essos, perhaps these soldiers wouldn’t recognize the maimed lion they had captured, wouldn’t see the wolf disguised as a bird.

Brienne, alone, was not worth ransoming to anyone other than her own father, surely.   Assuming he was alive to ransom her to, that was.  Brienne shuddered to think of the alternative, of some mercenary captain who decided he wanted to legitimize his claim to this island, no matter the cost, no matter how her already ugly face had been disfigured.

For @memoir-of-stars and @fanoftheknight, the drunken Dany/Jorah Game of Thrones AU fic I promised someone (I think it was @salzrand) last summer:

“The Donrish seem to have as many vineyards as the Dothraki have horses,” he heard Daenerys remark to Jorah, leaning halfway over him to look out the carriage window, her hand gripping his shoulder for balance.

“You wouldn’t think it, with the price the resulting wine fetches,” Ser Jorah replied, catching Daenerys with surprisingly steady hands as the carriage hit a rock and jostled them all.  

Daenerys allowed herself to be drawn back down onto the cushions beside Mormont, curling herself up against his side and resting her head against his shoulder.   Tyrion wasn’t sure what to make of the tableau they formed, her so slight and blossoming and him solid and weathered.  Mormont, he knew, was devoted to Daenerys beyond any doubt, and in every sense of the word but he was beginning to suspect he’d misjudged the nature Daenerys’ attachment to her bear, as she could so often be overheard calling Ser Jorah.

“Lemon trees!” the queen called out in obvious delight, interrupting Tyrion’s musing and reminding him once again how young the usually composed Daenerys really was.

And one more for good measure (since that was three tags), the Deanna Troi/Jadzia Dax Star Trek: TNG and DS9 crossover PWP I need to finish someday

“I hope I’m not overstepping.”

Standing in her doorway is Deanna Troi, Daughter of the Fifth House of Betazed, all soft curls and soft curves and a gentle unpresuming air that contradicts and heightens the impact of those things.  Jadzia is intrigued… okay she was already intrigued: now she’s closer to enchanted.

“Step all you want,” Jadzia keeps the tone of flirtatiousness in her voice light, knowing that the empathic counselor will be bound to notice it but letting it be something she can choose to react to or not.

Doubtless, she’s here about Worf.   She’s pretty sure everyone from here to the promenade heard their last row and, of course, Troi was there for the start of it.   

That’s okay with Jadzia.  There aren’t that many people who’ve seen certain sides of Worf, who understand him. (Sometimes Jadzia isn’t even sure she’d put herself in that number.)  It would be a relief to talk to someone who gets it.

“I feel like I owe you an apology, Jadzia.  Is it alright if I call you Jadzia?”

You could call me just about anything and I’d like it,  that wicked little Dax voice suggests, but it just brings a smile to her face.

Tagging: @joyful-voyager, @toas-tea, @ghostcat3000, @pixiedane, and @sophia-helix.

#lodessa writes fic

[oliviermiraarmstrongs]

SHIP HISTORY MEME

Embrace your past and get to know your friends’s fandom origins!

Rules: Post gifs of your fandoms / ships starting with your most current hyperfixation and work backwards. (Bonus points if you share any stories about how or when you got into that ship! But not necessary!!) Then tag anyone whose fandom history you’d like to learn about!

Tagged by @betweenironyandsilver! 😁

(Not posting gifs bc I’m on mobile and can’t find any good ones. also this will be streamlined and half-remembered fandom history for me so 🤷‍♀️)

Daenerys and Sansa (A Song of Ice and Fire)

I’m gonna cull down my ASOIAF ship list to just a few since I get fixated on a new relationship like every month (honorable mentions: sansa/sandor, sansa/margaery, arya/gendry, theon/jeyne, many others because I’m an extreme multishipper) but dany/sansa has become like, THE ONE. I just want these two sweet girls to find happiness with each other! They’ve suffered so much and just want to go home, and I think they should find it together. I know they’re not gonna be the titular “fire and ice”, but they should be!

Fleabag/Priest (Fleabag)

All I can say is OOF!!!!

Finn/Rey/Poe(/Rose)

I can’t get into just Poe/Finn or Rey/Ben or Finn/Rose because I don’t want any of them to be separated! As much as I love The Last Jedi, it needed more trio interaction, and TRoS only kinda half-delivered on it. And Rose deserves better, and she and Rey should’ve bonded! Kylo Ben is kind of included in here, I just wish he had more interaction with Finn and Poe. I just want these lonely, dysfunctional, emotionally stunted man-children to find a family with each other!

Link and Zelda (Legend of Zelda)

I get very invested in any Zelda game, so naturally I’m very attached to them! I’ve loved them since I was a kid playing OoT and TP (partially because I had a crush on both of them, and also on every girl Link has vaguely romantic interactions with like Malon, Midna, Ilia, etc. where’s my Zelda dating sim). They’re SO CUTE in Skyward Sword, and Breath of the Wild makes me love them even more!

Roy/Riza (Fullmetal Alchemist)

I love it as much as Ed/Winry, Al/Mei, and Ling/Lan Fan, but I gotta say Royai because like, when will a ship go this hard. “Will you follow me?” “If that is what you wish, then even into hell.” The DRAMA! The HISTORY! The DEVOTION!

Stiles/Lydia (Teen Wolf)

I was such trash for this show, but can you blame me with them? Say what you will about “snarky, dorky comic relief best friend gets with popular girl”, but they managed to bypass the common tropes by actually having good chemistry and a lot in common! 14-year-old me started watching because of them! It wasn’t enough to make me finish it though. But apparently they were endgame, so good for them.

Korra/Mako (Legend of Korra)

That’s right, time for a little controversy. I was down to clown for these two before the show even started, and when it did start? Ooooh boy! I will still maintain the opinion that s1 of Korra is the best, but that’s a whole other conversation. Episode three is like, SUCH a good showcase of how these two work so well as a team, with Mako calm and collected and Korra fierce and bold. She helps him break out of his shell, he helps her reign in her impulsive tendencies! I know the romantic drama of s1 could’ve been written better, but I still think they work well together. They just needed to grow more as people. I do like Korra/Asami, but I don’t love how their relationship was handled; but that’s a bigger discussion about my beef with the last two seasons. Anyway, I’m still a huge Mako defender, and an even bigger Korra defender, and I am humble enough to admit that I was one of the many who were prepared to pop the biggest bottles. (I still follow the girl who made that post, avatarskorra. She’s funny and takes the whole thing really well).

Maka/Soul (Soul Eater)

I’m just a sucker for ships who don’t have an explicitly romantic relationship, but are such a good team and have a such a close bond that it seems like they’re undergoing a veeeeeery slow burn.

James/Lily (Harry Potter)

They were my first experience reading fanfiction! I loved looking at a lot of fanart and gifsets and other creations on tumblr, and I was just losing my mind over this relationship between two dead characters! Just. The DRAMA of it all. I mean, I liked the magic parts of Harry Potter, but I really wanted a seven-year-spanning slow burn teen drama about the marauders and their shenanigans. Also, I was into the other canon HP ships (yeah, I was and still kinda am a canon fucker), but what I really loved was luna/neville because they were my faves.

Aang/Katara, Zuko/Mai (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

The canon fuckery strikes again! ATLA was one of my first experiences with fandom, which is a terrible introduction because y’all were a bunch of feral children ready to throw hands at any moment (same goes for LoK). But the show itself delivered so many pure, joyful moments. Aang’s face when he first sees Katara? Katara’s devastation when Aang nearly gets killed by Azula, followed by her relief at managing to resurrect him? The Kataango? Don’t try and tell me this ain’t the cutest shit ever. And I will go to bat for my moody teens Zuko and Mai! “I don’t hate you.” is some romantic shit!

Chuck/Ned (Pushing Daisies)

I loved romance as a kid, but I was afraid of sex and marriage, so they were made for me. Everything about this show made me happy, and also I had a crush on both of them.

I tag @sctine, @anipokie, @the-ginger--mermaid, @borispavlikovskys @trxters, @altraviolence, and anyone else who wants to get in on it!

#sophia says shit #tagged as me #ask meme